Always Wanna Die (Sometimes)
by ferociouscrayon
Summary: Sakura looks at him and sees yet another little boy the world hadn't seen fit to love. GaaSaku [If you can't survive, just try.]
1. Part 1

Canon divergence because fuck Sasuke. That guy is the worst.

* * *

"When I was six years old, I wanted to die."

To her detriment, Sakura has always had a fondness for broken things.

He would resent that distinction — "I'm not broken," he would say with a scowl — but her choices over the years have made for a fairly convincing track record.

Starting with the Uchiha.

Orphaned. Traumatized. Vengeful. Power hungry. Single-minded to the point of self-destruction. But she'd loved him all the same. Until one day after the war ended — specifically, the day he'd informed her he was leaving, yet again — she realized she'd outgrown him, and deserved a man who wasn't so destructively selfish.

Somewhere in between, there had also been Hatake Kakashi. Even now, years later, she's still not sure how they fell in to bed together. It had been unconventional and frowned upon by many — taking up with a man fifteen years her senior who'd had a hand in raising in her — even though she'd been of consenting age — well, almost — and his days as her instructor were all but over. Something about it still hadn't looked quite right to their peers, but neither had cared.

Despite also having been orphaned and traumatized, where it counted, Kakashi had been everything Sasuke had not: relentlessly kind, unfailingly patient, entirely unselfish, and content with his place in the world, and she had loved him. But a relationship in wartime with a man who believed to his core that he had been responsible for the deaths of everyone he had ever loved had not been easy, and at some point, they had both realized it never would be. With no less love for one another, they had both agreed it would be best if they went their separate ways, and after the war had ended, even though it had been hard — and still is — she'd happily accepted his invitation to continue in her role as assistant to the Hokage as he took up the mantle.

Over the years, to a certain extent and in a different capacity, there had also been Naruto. Also orphaned, but not quite traumatized, and lacking a single uncaring, selfish bone in his body, he'd been the brother she'd never had, or even known she'd wanted. And she'd loved him. Loves him still. She only wishes she'd realized it years earlier. The knowledge that, in her ignorance and foolishness, she had contributed to the suffocating loneliness he'd endured as a child breaks her heart daily, and all the years of love and friendship they've shared to this day cannot change that.

So when she looks at Gaara, and sees yet another little boy the world hadn't seen fit to love, her heart breaks all over again.

_When I was six years old, I wanted to die_.

The words cement themselves in her brain.

"You can't mean that," she says.

But in six years, she's never known Gaara to say something he doesn't mean. His darkened expression reaffirms that.

She reaches across the bed and lays a hand on his chest. Suddenly he feels so very fragile.

* * *

Even though she asks, Naruto opts not to share much of Gaara's personal history when she's assigned to oversee antidote development as part of a Suna-funded research project on toxins — either out of deference to the Kazekage or misplaced concern over Sakura's feelings about the man. Possibly both. She's seen very little of Gaara over the years, and still holds some reservations about the young man's mental stability, though she's never chosen to share them out loud because it isn't in very good taste to openly criticize a powerful ally, and she doesn't want to upset Naruto, who has very strong convictions about how much Gaara has changed.

So she goes into a six-month stint in the Wind country mostly blind, with only the knowledge that Gaara had not been blessed with a terribly pleasant childhood, and that Shukaku no longer holds residence in his brain since she'd had the misfortune of being on-hand to witness the One Tail being forcibly extracted from his body three years prior. But she doesn't think it will matter much, because surely the Kazekage will have matters more pressing than medical research in which to invest his time, and their interactions will be minimal. And she isn't entirely wrong.

At first.

They don't cross paths until nearly two weeks after she's arrived. Kankurou had been officially tasked with getting her settled since he would be her poisons counterpart heading up the project. He specifically requested her when the project had been proposed, he tells her with a sly smile — the admission doesn't surprise her. She has always suspected that he might have developed something of a crush on her after the night she'd detoxed him of Sasori's poison and she cannot help but return his smile before continuing to organize her work station. Then he apologizes for the absence of his brother and sister — they're attending a summit of the Suna elders to discuss spending and the continued post-war effort to rebuild the village, he says. But, Sakura doesn't mind. She's perfectly happy to skip the formalities of being welcomed by the Kazekage and his advisors and immediately immerse herself in her work instead.

When the summit ends two days later, Temari promptly swings by the hospital to make sure Sakura has been properly situated — Does she have the equipment she needs? Is her apartment comfortable? Is she eating? Sleeping? Is Kankurou giving her a hard time? — and, once she decides she's satisfied with the medic's accommodations, to inquire after Shikamaru, which Sakura is sure had been the true intention of her visit all along. Gaara does not make an appearance, for which she is secretly grateful. She no longer fears him, because after six years and two wars, she has seen and experienced countless things more terrifying than a twelve-year-old jinchuriki unable to control the bijuu sealed inside him. But his perpetually brooding demeanor and quick temper on the few occasions they've seen one another since her first chuunin exam still leave her wary.

So she spends much of the first two weeks gently rebuffing Kankurou's frequent invitations to dinner at his brother's. She doesn't want to hurt his feelings — not that Kankurou's feelings are easily wounded — but she also hopes he'll eventually tire of being shot down and stop asking, because the idea of sitting down to dinner with him and his siblings is a stressful one. She likes Temari and Kankurou just fine, but their's is a family whose inner workings she isn't inclined to see up close, so she continues to kindly refuse. Simply staying late at work, she finds, makes for an easy loophole, because unlike Kankurou, after years of studying under the Fifth Hokage, Sakura is acclimatized to excessively long hours in a hospital. She only needs to stay an extra hour or two before Kankurou will start to yawn and decide to call it a night. Tomorrow night, he'll insist. Yes, she'll say with a polite smile, maybe tomorrow night.

The Friday of her second week, she unwittingly stays at the hospital until nearly midnight, absorbed in a promising antibody until her stomach gives a weak growl and she realizes the time. Reluctantly, she puts away her equipment, grabs her flak jacket, turns out the lights and ducks out of the lab to head for home.

She'd spent some time in the Wind Country before and during the war, but finds that she still doesn't care for the desert climate — unbearably hot during daylight hours, and shockingly cold once the sun sets, so she's taken to wearing her shorts and quipao when leaving her apartment in the morning, but toting her flak jacket along for when she returns home in the evenings. She knows it's a silly combination, but evidently none of the clothes she owns — or at least the clothes she'd packed — are appropriate for Suna's climate, so she's resigned herself to making the best of it.

So it's on the corner of the street outside the hospital, hands stuffed into the pockets of her flak jacket, shoulders braced against the biting wind and desperately wishing for her infantry pants, that she finally runs into him. She recognizes his familiar shock of red hair from the front steps, and, realizing that she can't simply turn and head the other way — the opposite direction of her apartment — she slowly makes her way down to the end of the block where he's waiting.

"I was on my way to see you," he tells her.

There is still something in his voice that she doesn't like — the eerie calm she remembers as a child that had belied the rage and bloodlust just below the surface.

"Oh," she says, offhanded. "Why?"

"Kankurou says you've been working late."

"There's a lot to work on."

"He thinks you're avoiding me."

She frowns. "I'm not."

He studies her for a long moment, and she shifts uncomfortably.

"You look different," he says, and she vaguely recalls why she's always struggled to make conversation with this man. Whatever unpleasantness he'd lived through as a child had left his social skills a little wanting, even after years of friendship with the single most charismatic human she knows.

"Yes, well, it's been almost a year."

He continues to stare at her.

"Your hair is longer," he points out. "And your dress is different."

She supposes he has a point. She had taken to growing out her hair after the war ended, though she hasn't made much progress as it's only just started to reach past her shoulders. And when she'd come home from the war officially on the jounin payroll and happy to be alive, she'd promptly gone out and furnished herself a new wardrobe, including a new dress that's reminiscent of both the qipao she'd worn as a girl and the red vest she'd loved back in her chuunin days — sleeveless with a high collar, in red, of course, but it fades nicely at the waist into a short white skirt that's split at the sides to allow for a longer hemline in the back, and zips up the front. She'd personally emblazoned a white circle below the bust after bringing it home.

"I decided to grow my hair out," she says with a shrug. "And I bought some new clothes. You look different, too."

She means to make a point, but truthfully he looks much the same as he did during the war with his tanuki eyes, unkempt red hair, grey vest and tawny overcoat, and historically apathetic expression. Except maybe, she thinks, he's gotten a bit taller. And maybe he's filled out a bit more, but compared to many of her male peers who have finally come out on the other side of adolescence and started to put on some muscle, he's still too wiry to be eighteen years old and a shinobi.

He blinks at her, disbelieving. "I do?"

"Yes, you're not as skinny," she tells him. "Are you finally sleeping?"

The corners of his mouth turn down. "No."

She immediately regrets asking and shoves her hands further into the pockets of her jacket. Her hair whips around her face and she can feel the tiny pinpricks of sand on her bare arms and legs as the wind picks up again.

"Apologies, Kazekage-sama—"

"Gaara."

"What?"

"I'd prefer if you just called me Gaara."

She eyes him warily. "Okay… Well, I was just on my way home—"

She moves to step around him, and is dismayed when he shifts as well and their shoulders knock together.

"It's late," he says. "I'll walk you."

She thinks that really isn't necessary, but keeps it to herself as she starts down the street in the direction of her apartment and he falls in step beside her. As they walk, she realizes that he's most certainly gotten taller, and by a solid three inches at least, because when once she'd been able to look him square in the eye without even lifting her chin, she now finds herself staring at his jawline instead. It bothers her just a bit — she's come to dislike men who can look down on her, and whether he means to or not, Gaara still has a habit of looking down his nose at people.

He says little as they make their way through the darkened Suna streets, except to ask if she's comfortable in her lodgings, which she assures him she is, and they both lapse back into an uneasy silence. She wishes she'd just politely insisted on seeing herself home instead of agreeing to let him walk with her because it's cold and she'd really prefer to just run the rest of the way so she can get inside and out of the wind and the sand. She has to force herself to match his easy pace, even as another stiff wind picks up and her stomach twists painfully with hunger.

When at last they round the corner of her street and find themselves standing at the front steps of her building, he looks down at her and asks if she'll come tomorrow then, and her head snaps up in confusion.

"What?"

"You said you weren't avoiding me," he says, "so you'll join my siblings and I for dinner tomorrow?"

She opens her mouth, then closes it again, resigned.

"All right," she concedes.

She thinks she sees a flicker of a smile tug at his lips.

"Six o'clock. Kankurou will be happy," he tells her.

Is that all? She shifts her weight from one leg to the other and stares up at him, hands still fisted in the pockets of her flak jacket.

"And you?" she asks.

His expression smoothes over and she can no longer gauge his emotions.

"It's good to see you," he says and she can't help but give a little snort of laughter.

With a wry smile, she says "Goodnight, Kazekage-sama," and heads up the steps into her building.

But, curiosity gets the better of her once she's made it up to her apartment on the top floor and locked the door behind her, and she finds herself drawn to the window that overlooks the street in front of the building to see if he's still standing outside. But when she pulls back the curtain and peers down at the darkened street, he's disappeared, and she wonders why she's surprised that he'd simply headed home. Her stomach gives another groan of hunger, and she shakes her head at her own behavior and goes to step away from the window, but a shadow on the neighboring roof rediverts her attention and she realizes he hadn't left after all. She watches him for several minutes, tracing his darkened outline, mostly just to be sure it's actually him and not god-knows who else. She wonders if he knows she can see him, and whether or not that had been his intent in the first place.

"Strange boy," she says quietly, and pulls the curtain closed.

* * *

The first thing she realizes the next day is that, in addition to being inappropriate for life in the desert, all of the clothes she's brought with her from Konoha are also inappropriate for being invited to dinner with the Kazekage and his family. Aside from her every day attire, she'd only packed her Konoha infantry uniform as a precaution. Her typical dress-and-shorts combination is casual enough to pass as civilian clothing and she hadn't seen the need to bring along anything formal. It would have just taken up space in her already small pack, and no one wants to hump a heavy, overstuffed rucksack three days across the desert. She curses her evidently poor decision, because she has plenty of pretty new dresses hanging in her closet back in Leaf that she could have worn if she'd had the forethought to bring them, and now she has to go buy one.

So after having breakfast and a shower, she takes what she deems to be a healthy amount of ryo from her wallet and sets off for the markets in search of an acceptable boutique.

Suna, as it turns out, does not have the same range of shopping as Konoha, presumably due to its history of economic struggle, and it takes Sakura the better part of an hour, looking in windows and popping in and out of shops, before she stumbles upon an upscale little place tucked away on a side street with an assortment of expensive-looking dresses in the windows. She wouldn't have dared set foot in a shop like this before her jounin promotion, because living independently at sixteen on a chuunin's paycheck hadn't left her with a lot of extra money each month, at least not if she'd wanted to eat. But money had become less of an issue for Sakura since the war had ended and she'd added a jounin's income to her existing salaries as the Hokage's assistant and a resident medic at the Konoha hospital, so she doesn't bat an eyelash as she walks inside.

It doesn't take her long to find what she's looking for. The dress she singles out on the rack and holds up in front of herself in the mirror is bright sunshine yellow, flecked with blossoms in black, white, and a shade of peach pink that closely resembles her own hair color. It's long enough to brush the floor — because she's not as tall as she wishes she were — with long sleeves, a deep keyhole neckline that twists up into a high collar, and an elegant open back. She doesn't even ask to try it on, and cheerfully ignores the staggering price tag as she hands hands the shopkeeper all but ten ryo of what she'd taken out of her wallet this morning.

Back at her apartment, she strips out of her clothes and carefully zips herself into her new purchase, pleased to find that it fits her like glove. The bodice will force her to go without a bra, though her breasts aren't large enough that she foresees it being a problem. But as she admires herself in the bathroom mirror, she also realizes belatedly that a dress like this really necessitates a particular kind of shoe — namely, the kind she hadn't brought with her because she doesn't even own any. She'd given heels an honest effort for the years she'd trained under Tsunade — because if the Fifth Hokage could live and fight in them, then so could she, dammit — but had eventually returned to a flat sandal because heels weren't part of her infantry uniform, and their disadvantages had become immediately apparent once she'd made the switch. She wanders out into the hallway and inspects her black knee-high sandals — the most elegant alternative that she'd been able to find when she'd given up her heels — before deciding that if she polishes them up a little, they'll probably look just fine, because she's already spent more money than she should have, and the dress is long enough to cover them up anyway.

But when she arrives outside Gaara's building at ten minutes of six with the hem of her dress gathered in one hand prevent it from dragging along the ground behind her, she sorely regrets that line of thinking. The two masked Anbu standing guard outside tilt their heads, as if puzzled by her appearance, so she gives them her name, and explains that she's been invited to dinner with the Kazekage and his siblings, and they promptly usher her inside, where another Anbu escorts her to the elevator and up to Gaara's suite on the top floor. She waits until the elevator doors close and the Anbu is out of sight before she knocks on the door, still clutching the hem of her dress. When it swings open after a beat, she finds Gaara standing in front of her, dressed in a long-sleeve black pullover and standard-issue black infantry pants, barefoot. His eyes widen just a fraction and she realizes her error in assuming a family dinner with Kazekage would be a formal event. The blood immediately rushes to her face — she's far too overdressed.

She hears Kankurou shout from somewhere inside, asking if it's her at the door.

"Yes," he calmly calls back over his shoulder, but his eyes never leave her.

For a lack of anything else to do, she releases the hem of her dress, letting it flutter to the floor around her feet, and anxiously smoothes out the front.

"You look nice," he says in a quiet voice, as if he thinks someone else might hear, and then promptly steps aside, gesturing for her to come in as Kankurou walks up behind him.

She's even more embarrassed by her choice of attire when she sees his naked face and messy hair, and that he's barefoot just like his brother.

"Wow, Sakura!" he praises her. "What a dress!"

She laughs — mostly at herself — and thanks him, explaining that she hadn't realized this was going to be a casual get-together, to which Kankurou jovially responds that she ought to always overdress. In her peripheral vision, she sees that Gaara is still staring at her.

"Get in here," Kankurou insists, grabbing her hand and pulling her inside. "Food's almost ready."

He immediately shouts for his sister and takes off down the hall— she needs to get out here and see Sakura's dress.

Sakura, unfamiliar with both her surroundings and her situation, remains in the entryway beside Gaara. There's a soft click as he shuts the door behind her, and then a tentative hand touches her exposed back.

"This way," he says.

She turns her head to regard him, but he's not looking at her anymore. Then she feels his hand fall away as he steps past her and follows after his brother.

Last night's thought returns to her: _strange boy_.

* * *

Dinner turns out to be a light-hearted, if slightly awkward affair. Sakura doesn't consider herself close enough with any of the Sand siblings to really feel comfortable sitting around a dinner table with them, but finds that conversation comes easily enough: her work. How the project is coming along in its early stages. Life in Konoha. Life in Suna. Stories from their genin days. Gaara, for the most part, says very little and spends most of the meal simply observing the interactions of his brother and sister, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth every now and again.

Toward the end of the meal, having had enough of Kankurou's ruthless teasing for asking Sakura about Shikamaru, Temari turns to Sakura and demands to know where she'd bought that dress. She asks if it was a little place just east of the markets, down a back alley. It was, Sakura tells her, and Temari makes a face.

"Did you know that the man who owns that shop designs dresses for the wife of the Wind daimyo?" she asks, and points a finger at Sakura's gown. "That dress is probably one-of-a-kind! I can't imagine how much you paid for it!"

Sakura smiles and shrugs. "Well, I have to look the part, don't I? How else am I going to land a rich husband?"

She tosses her hair over her shoulder for effect, and the eldest Sand siblings dissolve into laughter.

"You hear that, Kankurou?" Temari ribs him. "A rich husband! You're out of luck!"

Kankurou smiles and insists that he simply hasn't made his fortune yet - he's only twenty, after all. At the other end of the table, Gaara shifts uncomfortably in his seat.

"What about the Uchiha?"

Sakura nearly chokes as the words leave his mouth, and Temari does a double take between the Leaf nin and her youngest brother.

"Oh, Sakura, no!" She scolds, oblivious to Sakura's discomfort. "Please tell me you're not still on about him."

Too quickly, Sakura jumps to her own defense and the words come tumbling out before she has a chance to properly think them through: "Oh please, I gave up on that daydream two years ago when I started seeing Kakashi."

Kankurou's jaw drops, and Temari just stares at her dumbly, as if she hadn't understood.

"I'm sorry," she says. "Did you just say that you got a leg up on Hatake Kakashi?"

Sakura rolls her eyes, realizing what she's just brought upon herself. "Not in those exact words, but yes."

Kankurou balks. "The Copy Ninja?"

"Yes," Sakura repeats, annoyed. "We were together for over a year. You didn't know that? I thought everyone knew that."

Temari and Kankurou continue to stare at her, completely dumbfounded, so she chances a look across the table at the youngest Sand sibling to find his face completely blank. If Gaara has any opinion on this information, he doesn't show it. But, his brother and sister promptly launch into a full interrogation, and the questions come rapid-fire.

How old was she? Almost sixteen. Almost? Yes, almost. How old was he? Thirty-one at the time. Wasn't he her teacher? Yes, but not anymore. Wasn't it weird? No, why would it have been weird? They didn't get in trouble? No, they were both adults. The Godaime didn't castrate him? Tsunade didn't care. Why him? Lots of reasons. When had things ended? Just before the war. Why?

Sakura stiffens.

"It just didn't work out," she says, and reaches for her sake cup, hoping the siblings realize she has no interest in continuing the conversation, and drop it.

They don't.

"I don't get it," Kankurou says, disbelieving. "Kakashi?"

Temari rolls her eyes at her brother. "I do."

"But he's old."

Sakura's hand tightens around her cup.

"Temari. Kankurou."

In unison, both siblings immediately turn to look at their brother, and Sakura recognizes that tone in his voice. She remembers hearing it as a twelve-year-old during the chuunin exams when his siblings had stepped out of line. It's an order — a warning. She takes a sip of her sake, watching him over the lip of her cup. His face is still preternaturally calm. She doesn't know how to feel about that.

"I think we've done enough prying into Sakura-san's personal life for one evening, don't you?" he says, and even though the words are meant to sound good-natured, it's his polite way of warning his siblings they'd best leave things alone.

He reaches for his own cup and takes a slow sip, and when he meets her gaze over the rim, she immediately looks away and reaches for the bottle in the middle of the table to refill her cup, ignoring the fact that Temari or Kankurou should pour for her.

Kankurou gives an uneasy laugh.

"Gaara's right. Sorry, Sakura," he says, grabbing the bottle from her and holding out a hand for her glass. "It's none of our business."

Sakura forces a smile and hands him her cup. "It's all right, Kankurou-kun. It's just a bit of a sore subject still."

He frowns at her addition of the diminutive suffix to his name, but says nothing as he refills her cup and hands it back to her. She should feel bad, but she doesn't. Better to just let the crush run it's course, she thinks, taking a sip.

Later, after the dishes have been cleared away, when Temari and Kankurou say their goodnights to head for their respective homes, Sakura does the same — thanking the siblings for their hospitality before following Temari back out to the entryway. Kankurou, she notices, despite having announced his departure, lingers in the kitchen with Gaara. She mentions it to Temari as she zips herself back into her sandals.

"Probably to talk about you," Temari says with a shrug, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.

Sakura feels the blood rush to her face. "What?"

Temari looks at her like she's an idiot as she shrugs into her flak jacket. "It's the most reasonable explanation, don't you think?"

"No," Sakura says, frowning. "Why would they have any reason to talk about me?"

Temari only smiles, and Sakura gets the feeling the older girl must know something that she doesn't, and it bothers her. But before she has a chance to press Temari for more information, Kankurou and Gaara emerge from the kitchen. She presses her lips together, zips up her other sandal, and gets to her feet. Kankurou smiles as he walks past her to stand beside his sister in front of the door, while Gaara stops just behind Sakura. She glances briefly between the two, feeling as though she's missed something.

"Temari," Gaara addresses his sister, "thank you for cooking. It was delicious, as always."

Temari's expression warms visibly as she smiles in response. Then Gaara turns to his brother.

"I'll see you tomorrow," he says, and the two embrace briefly and Sakura suddenly feels very lost, unsure of what it is she's witnessing.

And then they're gone, wishing Sakura a goodnight and shutting the door behind them, leaving her standing in the entryway with Gaara, without his siblings for a buffer. She glances over at him to find him slipping into his sandals and looping a large white scarf around his neck and shoulders. She doesn't bother to ask what he's doing.

"I'll walk you home," he says, turning to face her.

Sakura feels her patience wearing thin.

"That's kind of you, but I'm sure I'll be fine," she says, struggling for a polite means of saying no. "I don't want to be a bother."

He unlocks the door and holds it open for her. "You're not a bother."

Realizing she's not being given a choice, Sakura forces a smile, gathers up the skirt of her dress and steps out into the hallway with him right behind her.

"I apologize for my brother and sister's behavior earlier," he says once they're in the elevator.

She looks up at him, surprised.

"You don't have to be sorry," she tells him. "And neither do they. It just isn't something I like to talk about. With anyone."

"I understand," he says with a nod, and she finds herself believing that, of all people, he probably understands the most.

She can't imagine the memories he must live with, and if what Naruto says about him is true, she can't imagine how he lives with them at all. She feels a familiar ache in her chest at the thought, and silently warns it away.

They reach the ground floor, and Gaara nods silently to the Anbu on duty as they exit the elevator and pass down the hallway to the front doors. But when they step outside into the empty street, Sakura is entirely unprepared for the cold and the wind that cuts right through the thin fabric of her dress and stops dead, dropping her skirt tail and locking her arms over her chest to hide her now obvious lack of an undergarment. She wants to hope that Gaara won't notice, but she when she looks over at him, he's already unwinding the wrap from around his neck.

"No, please," she says quickly. "Don't. I'll be fine if we just hurry."

But he ignores her and, moving to stand in front of her, carefully brushes her hair out of the way and wraps the large scarf around her shoulders. His eyes never dip below her neckline, and suddenly she wants to die, because it all but confirms that she hadn't been able to cover her chest fast enough and he'd most certainly noticed. Then, to add to her embarrassment, he reaches down, carefully gathers the hem of her dress off the ground, and holds it up to her. She stares him, bewildered, wondering what he's playing at, or if he's just being polite. She accepts it from him with a wary thank you.

"Will you be warm enough?" He asks.

"I'll be fine. It's not that far," she says, snapping even though she doesn't mean to, so she adds, more softly: "Thank you."

He gives her a faint smile that she only recognizes by the way his eyes crinkle just barely at the corners, and she isn't sure why. Maybe it's only because she exists in such close proximity to Naruto and is therefore a friend by extension. Or maybe Naruto is right and Gaara truly has changed and this is simply how he treats people now and she's the only one to whom this behavior seems out of character.

The latter is a nice thought, and she finds herself smiling back at him for a brief moment before the wind picks up again and she buries her face in his scarf to try and escape it. Warm fingers touch the naked skin of her back for the second time that evening and a hard shudder tracks down her spine. She hopes he simply thinks it's the temperature.

"Come on," he says softly, and with a gentle nudge, encourages her to start walking.

As they walk, she's pleased to find that his pace is quicker this evening, even though it means she nearly has to jog to keep up. So long as she doesn't trip over her dress, it's worth it to make it back to her apartment and out of the cold. She belatedly wonders if Gaara is cold, having given up his wrap for her sake, but when she glances over at him, he appears completely unbothered by the temperature, even as another gust of wind whips at their faces and Sakura shrugs further into his scarf to protect herself.

"You're not cold?" she asks, peering up at him over the top of the wrap which she's managed to wiggle all the way up over her nose to hide from the biting wind.

He glances over, and a small smile tugs at the corners of his mouth.

"I'm fine," he says, and for some reason, Sakura feels her cheeks redden.

It's strange, she thinks. She doesn't find him immediately handsome the way she had Sasuke or Kakashi. His facial features are still soft and delicate the way they had been when he was a boy, and he's too thin for his age and height — a byproduct, along with the kohl black circles around his eyes, of years spent suffering from insomnia that ought to make him look sickly but somehow fails. But something about the way he carries himself, the glint in his eyes when he finds something amusing, that small, guarded smile… Sakura doesn't know what to make of him now.

"I feel bad," she tells him.

His pale eyes flicker back to her. "Don't."

They've turned on to her street before she realizes, and while she's grateful at the prospect of warmth and a lack of sand — which isn't entirely true because this is the desert after all and there is sand _everywhere_ — she's strangely disappointed when they slow to a stop outside of her building. She looks up to find him staring at her expectantly, so with her free hand she reaches up to unwind the scarf from around her shoulders, but he shakes his head.

"Keep it," he says.

She makes a face at him. "But, it's cold and you have to walk back."

"I told you, I'm fine, " he assures her, and she recognizes that half-smile again. "You can return it to me another time."

She smirks at him, realizing what he's attempting to do. Another time?

"So, I'm going to see you again, then?"

He crosses his arms over his chest and shifts back on his heels, knowing he's being teased. He explains that he wants to come by the hospital, to see how the project is coming along. He says he's interested to see what she and his brother are working on, if she doesn't mind.

"You need my permission?" she asks, grinning. "You're the Kazekage. Can't you do whatever you want?"

He regards her seriously. "Yes."

"Well, then, I'll be sure to bring it with me to the hospital on Monday," she says, tucking the scarf in closer around her face. "Thank you for lending it to me."

"I don't think Naruto would forgive me if I let something happen to you," he tells her.

She knows it will hurt his feelings if she laughs, but she can't resist the opportunity to poke just a bit of fun at him. "Like walking home alone after dark?"

He frowns at her.

"You ought to have more faith in your people," she continues cheerily. "And your friends."

Then, with a smile — even as he continues to stare at her, dismayed — she wishes him a good night, and turns to head up the steps of her building.

"Goodnight, Sakura-san," he calls quietly after her.

She thinks they could be friends.

When she makes it upstairs, she gives in and allows herself a peek out the window to see if he's still there — if he's going to make a habit of this. She might have to say something if he does. She looks first at the street, then at the nearby rooftops, but he's nowhere to be found.

Good, she thinks. She doesn't want to have to say anything.

* * *

He knows she only does it to bother him. And he's not sure why he likes that. As she walks inside, leaving him standing alone on the street outside her apartment building, he thinks maybe it's because she's the only woman other than his sister brave enough to have a little fun at his expense. Except he wouldn't like looking at Temari's back if she ever wore a dress like that.

The thought immediately sends him homeward.


	2. Part 2

[But what about these feelings I've got?]

* * *

She doesn't see him again for nearly a week.

Kankurou tells her on Monday morning that — and she _doesn't_ miss the way his mouth twitches when she walks into the lab with Gaara's scarf bundled around her shoulders — they have business with the Wind Daimyo — something about requesting increased funding. He and Gaara will be leaving for the Lord's estate in the countryside and won't be returning until Friday. With a flirtatious smile, he tells her he hopes she won't be _too_ lonely without him. She cheerfully informs him that he shouldn't worry — she won't be. He laughs and slings his scrolls over his shoulder before packing away a few vials of the new poison he's testing — just in case.

"See you Friday," he says, and then he's gone.

At first Sakura thinks she'll be grateful for the solitude. She tells herself she'll be much more productive without the distraction of Kankurou's smalltalk, but quickly finds that she misses his company. The other Sand medics are wary of her because, as it turns out, Sakura's reputation as the apprentice of the Godaime Hokage — yes, the one who effectively nullified all of their poisons during the first war and could conveniently punch a hole through a five-foot-thick concrete wall without batting an eyelash — had preceded her, and so they do their best to keep their distance, leaving her with no one to talk to.

It proves to be a very lonely week.

And she's not sure why, but she continues to wear Gaara's scarf to and from the hospital. By Friday, she's even stopped bothering to take it off when she arrives in the morning and instead contentedly goes about her day with it pulled up around her chin because it's surprisingly comfortable, the lab is heavily air-conditioned, and she might like the way it smells — though the more she wears it, the more she finds it smells like her instead.

The day wears on with her engrossed in testing the antidote she's been creating against Kankurou's new poison, but with limited success because the antidote is still in its preliminary stages of development, and somehow it's _always_ easier to make something that effectively kills a person than it is to make something that will put a person back together. Despite her love of a good challenge, she finds herself cursing Kankurou for having been given the easier task. When her tenth adjustment stills fails to produce more than a slight fizzle on the scroll bearing Kankurou's poison, she swears and tears the paper in half before pitching it in the hazardous waste bin with what some might call 'excessive force'. She glances out the window, dismayed to find that the sun has already gone down, and then at the clock on the wall. She sighs. Ten o'clock. Fourteen hours tinkering with her antidote and what does she have to show for it besides ten wasted scrolls and nearly a pint of base poured down the drain. She swears again and slumps forward onto the counter.

"You sound just like her."

She whips around in her seat to glare at the doorway, her right hand having already pulled a kunai from the holster around her thigh because her instincts are apparently faster than her vocal recognition, but she knows that shock of messy red hair anywhere.

"You're not the first person who's told me that," she says, frowning and tucking away the kunai.

She doesn't think to be embarrassed by the fact that he'd witnessed her temper tantrum, or the fact that she's still wearing his scarf.

"I'm sure I'm not," he says, and even though he's not smiling, she feels her own lips turning up at the edges.

What a strange world, she thinks. Gaara of the Sand Waterfall is trying to make fun of her.

"You're late," she tells him.

He crosses his arms over his chest and regards her sternly from the doorway.

"We only just got back," he replies, and she wonders if he doesn't realize she's joking because it sounds a bit like an apology.

"And you came straight here?" she balks, hoping he'll catch on. "Should I be flattered or worried?"

Judging by his placid expression, he doesn't. He tells her his presence shouldn't worry her. She smiles, resigned, and assures him it doesn't. He glances down at his scarf around her neck, then back at her, and asks how long she's been here. She flushes a bit and tells him that she'd gotten in at eight o'clock this morning. He asks if she's eaten. She admits that she hasn't — at least not since breakfast.

He scowls. "You need to eat."

"That's a bit rich coming from the man who doesn't sleep," she says before she can stop herself, and immediately ducks her chin into his scarf.

If she's offended him, she has no way of knowing because his expression doesn't change. Instead, he just asks her if she's hungry, and somehow that makes her feel worse.

"A bit," she says quietly.

He stares at her from across the lab for a long moment, as if carefully considering his response, so she is somehow both surprised and not by the single word he chooses.

"Dinner?"

She blinks at him. Dinner? She has to forcibly suppress her knee-jerk reaction to ask him if this is his way of asking her on a date.

She hesitates, then smiles. They could be friends.

"Sure," she says.

Noting the tiny upward curve of his mouth, she quickly finishes clearing her work station and rinses her hands before joining him at the door. Her fingers hover over the light switch when she notices him studying her, his eyes moving between her face and his scarf, then back again.

"It's grown on me," she explains, and hopes he doesn't mind that she's been wearing it most of the week and that it could probably do with a wash.

His gaze steadies on her face. "It suits you," he says.

She feels her cheeks redden, and immediately flips off the lights.

* * *

He leads her through the quiet streets to a little hole-in-the-wall of a place tucked away in a back alley just around the corner from her apartment building. It's a single room with six seats at a small bar and two tiny tables barely large enough for two people, and Sakura is surprised when the woman behind the bar greets Gaara like a regular and gestures to the table in the corner. The moment they've sat down, she brings over a bottle of sake and two cups, then promptly disappears into the kitchen. Sakura glances across the table at Gaara — he's already uncorked the sake and pouring her a glass.

"Do you come here often?" she asks when he hands her the cup.

"Often enough," he says, filling his own.

She takes a sip and glances around the tiny establishment, having already noticed when they stepped inside that they were the only patrons. "I can see why you like it."

"It's quiet," he affirms, and Sakura can't help but smile.

As food begins to arrive at their table — without them having ordered anything or even looked at a menu — she asks him about his meeting with the Wind Daimyo: If they had safe travels. How the discussions had gone. If they'd secured additional funding. Where he planned to invest the extra money.

They talk and eat and drink as a seemingly unending series of dishes is brought to the table. When one plate is empty, another one is slotted into its place with such speed and ease that Sakura, so engrossed in their conversation, hardly notices until she pops a pork dumpling into her mouth when she'd been expecting a spare rib.

She finds that she quite likes talking to Gaara. Each of his responses to her rapid-fire questions is carefully considered and intelligent, and the calm conviction with which he speaks about his position, his people, and his village surprises her, and she can't help wonder when and how he'd become so invested in the wellbeing of others.

"Why did you decide to become Kazekage?" she asks suddenly.

His steady expression tells her she is not the first person to ask him this. Far from it, in fact.

"I wanted to prove that I was no longer just a weapon, and that I could be useful for more than just killing people — to the village, and myself," he says without hesitation, and the words make Sakura's heart hurt.

Her fingers twitch and she curbs the instinct to reach across the table for his hand, and instead tells him with a wry smile that he's much better suited for the role than Kakashi, and maybe even Naruto.

He frowns. "Why did Kakashi-san accept the position?"

Sakura shrugs and sips at her sake. "He didn't realize how much paperwork there would be, I suppose."

She feels guilty for making the joke and hopes Gaara doesn't think badly of Kakashi, because in truth, Kakashi cares deeply about Konoha and its people, and makes a fine Hokage, but she'll always remember the look on his face when she'd strolled into his office on his very first day with a stack of documents so high — thanks namely to his predecessor, who had possessed a similar dislike of paperwork, and made a bad habit of ignoring it — she could barely see over the top of it. She's only seen Kakashi cry on three occasions, and the moment she'd thunked down that heap of paper on his desk had nearly been the fourth.

To her surprise, Gaara nods his head and agrees that there were many things he had not been prepared for when he became Kazekage.

"Like the paperwork?" She teases.

He nods and takes a sip of his sake. "And the assassins."

Her chopsticks clatter against the table and she stares at him, wide-eyed.

"People tried to have you killed?"

He shrugs. "I knew there were many people — many council members — who opposed my appointment, but I hadn't expected them to want me dead, even though I probably should have. I was overly optimistic. I thought if I'd been elected Kazekage, then I had earned the trust of the village. After the first attempt on my life, I realized that wasn't completely true, and it never would be."

He doesn't miss the way she then nervously eyes the woman behind the bar, because he immediately clarifies: "The assassination attempts stopped when they realized I wasn't killing the men they sent after me. But there are people in this village who will never trust me, and I've had to learn to accept that."

"But you've changed!" She insists with more vehemence than she realizes. "What about everything you've done for this village since you became Kazekage! How can they just ignore it?"

"They don't," he says, reaching across the table to pick up her chopsticks and set them carefully on the side of her dish — she's never realized how long his fingers are. "But, they also can't forget everything I did before I became Kazekage. The terror I inflicted. All the people I killed."

He pauses for a moment and his expression darkens.

"Would _you_ have forgiven me so easily?" he continues, his tone solemn. "If I weren't your friend?"

Confused, she makes a face at him. "Forgiven you for what?"

"I tried to kill you once," he says, and she winces — she hadn't wanted to be reminded. "And the people you love. I had a hand in the destruction of your village."

"That was a long time ago," she says quietly. "Things are different now."

"The good doesn't outweigh the bad, Sakura. I understand why those people wanted me dead, and I don't blame them."

She stares at him, bewildered, and wonders if that's what he thinks of her.

"I don't want you dead," she tells him. "I've never wanted anyone dead."

The corners of his lips turn down and his eyes soften. "Even if they'd deserved it?"

Realizing what he's really asking, she frowns and fists her hands on the table, her chest aching terribly. "You _don't_ deserve it."

The rest of the meal passes in silence, with Sakura only opening her mouth to argue when Gaara refuses to let her pay. They say nothing to one another on the short walk back to her apartment building, and part of her wonders why he'd bothered to walk her back at all since it's only just around the corner. But here they are again, standing outside her building, having a stare down, each unsure what to make of the other. Her gaze flickers to the blood kanji on his forehead — she's never known how he came by it, but she doesn't have the heart to ask him now. She thinks she might not really want to know.

Not knowing what to say, reluctantly she reaches up and unwraps the scarf from around her neck, half-expecting him to protest, and finding herself disappointed when he doesn't. She carefully folds it over once, then twice, into a neat square, but when she goes to hand it back to him, she suddenly throws her arms around his neck instead and buries her face in his shoulder. She feels him stiffen immediately, and knows she's probably crossed over the threshold of his comfort zone, but she doesn't care and holds onto him even more tightly.

"You don't deserve it, Gaara," she murmurs, the words muffled against his shoulder, but she knows he's heard her when he lifts his arms and tentatively wraps them around her middle.

She's seen him embrace his siblings, but this is different, and she has to wonder how many times in his life he's been held like this when she feels him press his cheek against her temple and take a deep, shuddering breath that causes his entire upper body to shake. With the hand that isn't holding his scarf, she gently strokes his hair and the back of his neck, ignoring the way her heart constricts in her chest. She takes a shallow breath in through her nose, and thinks he smells like the desert, and then, that it wouldn't make sense for him to smell like anything else.

They stay like this for several minutes, until at last Sakura can feel her chest give and it doesn't hurt so terribly to breathe. She loosens her arms around his shoulders and steps back, noting how reluctantly he does the same, and how his fingers tremble when they trace down her arms as he pulls away. She peers up at him, but — except for tiniest hint of color in his cheeks — he's as calm as ever, and she can't even begin to guess at what he's thinking.

So she just smiles and holds out his neatly folded scarf. "Thank you for letting me borrow it."

He accepts it, but says nothing. Half-afraid she's broken him, she thanks him for dinner also, but he only nods. So, unable to think of anything else to say, she reaches out and gently touches his arm.

"Goodnight, Gaara."

She gives his arm a little squeeze, then turns to head inside.

"Sakura."

She stops on the top step at the soft sound of her name and looks back at him. He's standing with his hands at his sides, and his pale eyes flit to the side, then back to her and she thinks this is the first time she's ever seen Gaara nervous, if you don't count the time he found himself being pummeled by Lee during their first Chuunin exam, which she doesn't.

"Yes?" she says.

"I would still like to come by the hospital," he tells her.

She smiles. "You're still the Kazekage, aren't you?"

He hesitates, then nods.

"Then you can do whatever you want," she reminds him, and it's hard to tell in the low light from the street lamps, but she thinks she sees him blush.

"Friday?" he asks after a moment.

She can't help but laugh just a little.

"Sure," she says. "Friday."

* * *

He wishes her goodnight and waits for her to disappear inside before holding up the precisely folded scarf clenched tightly in his right hand. He considers it for a moment, then, uncertainly, presses his nose into the soft white fabric. It smells like her. Suddenly, the sensation of her arms around his neck and her fingers in his hair from just moments before comes rushing back, and he recognizes the same feeling he'd experienced last Saturday, standing in the same spot on the street outside her building, watching her walk up the steps — wearing that dress. But rather than turn tail and head home the way he had that night, he lingers for a long while after she's gone inside, not entirely certain of what it is he's feeling — though he thinks he can probably guess — with his face buried in the scarf he'd lent her, like an absolute fool.

* * *

"What?" she says, noticing the dirty look Kankurou shoots her when he walks into the lab on Monday morning.

As expected, he plays dumb.

"What?"

She still rolls her eyes. "That look," she says. "What was that for?"

He sets his things down at his work station with a little too much force and looks at her over his shoulder, then sighs.

"You and Gaara got dinner on Friday night," he says, his expression pained.

She doesn't see the significance. Why should having dinner with his brother be a reason to scowl at her? "So?"

Kankurou turns and leans back against the counter, crossing him arms over his chest and regarding her severely.

"He said you hugged him."

So that's what this is about. Sakura makes a face at him.

"He told me about how the council tried to have him assassinated after he became Kazekage," she tells him, annoyed at being made to feel like she needs to defend her actions. "I was upset for him."

Kankurou continues to glower at her, as if he thinks she's making excuses. "Sakura, people have been trying to kill my brother since he was six years old."

Her heart seizes, and she thinks he could have just punched her in the chest and she wouldn't have known the difference. She's come across countless terrible people in her life, but she still can't wrap her head around how someone could stoop so low to send assassins after a child.

"Well," she says, fisting a hand in the front of her dress and swallowing hard, as if it might relieve some of the discomfort, "then he really needed that hug."

Kankurou's expression doesn't change — he clearly doesn't appreciate her attempt to be funny.

"What's the big deal, Kankurou?" she presses. "You've known me for years. I hug people. It's what I do. I get upset, and I hug people. I've done it to Naruto a million times, and I'm pretty sure I've done it to you. Why are you so worked up about this?"

Kankurou's face softens and he slumps down in his chair, not quite able to look at her.

"Just—" he hesitates, as though he's unsure if he really wants to say it, then forces it out anyway. "Just go easy on him, okay?"

She balks, sitting up straighter in her seat. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"He's never had a girl interested in him before—"

"But, I'm not—" she cuts him off, before he can say anything else, but finds herself trailing off, unable to fully deny it.

He stares at her sadly. "Aren't you?"

Sakura digs her heels in.

"You say girls aren't interested in him," she says, attempting to swing the conversation in a different direction, away from any feelings she may or may not have because even she's not sure yet, "but what about all those silly little kunoichi who are always going on and on about how 'Gaara-sama is so cool! Gaara-sama is so strong! Gaara-sama is so handsome!' It's pretty obvious they're interested."

Kankurou just shakes his head. She doesn't get it.

"They're just fangirls," he tells her. "This is different."

Sakura scowls at him. "_This_ isn't anything," she says stubbornly.

But based on his somber expression, it's obvious he doesn't believe her. "Are you really sure about that?"

"I—" she falters, then slowly relents. "I don't know what this is."

Kankurou gives another sigh and spins around in his chair, turning his back on her.

"Look, can you just do me a favor," he says, making no attempt to mask the hurt in his voice, "and try to figure it out soon? He's my little brother."

But, Sakura can think of nothing to say to him, and consequently the rest of the week passes in slow, agonizing silence.


	3. Part 3

[At the best of times, I'm lonely in my mind, but I can find something to show you.]

* * *

She's grateful when she comes in to the lab on Friday morning to a note from Kankurou taped to her work station, telling her he'll be gone until the following week — apparently it's his turn to oversee the monthly changeout of troops at the eastern border. He tells her not to miss him too much. She smiles bitterly as she sets the note aside, and thinks that's the nicest thing he's said to her all week.

To her surprise, Gaara shows up in the middle of the afternoon rather than in the evening as she'd expected, but she still finds that, despite being unprepared, she's happy to see him, especially after four days of the cold shoulder from Kankurou. Though, as she waves him over to where she's sitting at the counter with a petri dish and a microscope, she wonders if — after her conversation with his brother — maybe she shouldn't be. But then he has to go and stand close beside her while listening intently as she tries to explain how she's attempting to further break down Kankurou's new poison into it's different components in order to identify the antibodies missing from her antidote, before asking interested, intelligent questions about her process and the areas in which she's found success as well as the areas in which she's struggling, and make it impossible for her to be displeased by his presence.

The last hours of the afternoon wear away with ease as they discuss her work, and before either of them realize, the sun is setting and the last vestiges of daylight illuminate the white washed surfaces of the lab in a rosy glow. She almost expects it when he looks at her and asks the same single-word question he had the Friday before: "Dinner?"

She wonders if they're going to make a habit of this.

They return to the little place around the corner from her apartment, which, despite the fact that it's only seven o'clock, is still empty, and they tuck themselves into the same table in the corner. The same woman smiles at Gaara, then at her, and brings them a bottle of sake and two cups. Sakura asks him if the food will be different this time, because she'd really liked those dumplings. He smiles just barely and tells her that the food is different every time, because he never orders. But, she can ask for the dumplings again, if she wants. Good, she tells him, and accepts the glass of sake from his outstretched hand.

The conversation comes more easily tonight. As they're brought out plates of spicy noodles to start, he asks about the nature of her work back in Leaf — if it's similar to the work she's doing here. She works in antidote research and development at home, too, she tells him, but between babying the Rokudaime and her shifts at the hospital, she isn't left with as much time to focus on her research, and much of it has to be delegated out to other lower-ranking medics who aren't trying to juggle multiple jobs. Coming here has been a nice change of pace, she says. She's missed this aspect of her job, and is grateful for the opportunity to devote all her time and energy to it.

There's a lull in conversation as a plate of pork dumplings is set on the table in front of her, along with a small tray of grilled chicken skewers, so she takes the opportunity to ask him if he keeps busy during the week, then, teasingly, when he gives her a detailed run-through of his daily workload — everything from determining mission assignments and reading through debriefings to reviewing budget proposals and reevaluating trade agreements, just to name a few — if that's why she only sees him on Fridays. A familiar glint appears in his eyes and he asks if that's her way of saying she'd like to spend more time with him.

She nearly dies.

"I'm sorry," she says, laughing, "did you just make fun of me?"

His expression becomes very earnest, and she's afraid she's hurt his feelings, until he asks her, very seriously: "Would you like to spend more time with me?"

She fidgets with her chopsticks and thinks about her conversation with Kankurou — how he'd asked her to sort out her feelings sooner rather than later.

They could be friends, couldn't they?

"Well, I haven't made any friends here since all the other medics are afraid of me," she says with a touch of pride as she reaches for a dumpling, and doesn't miss the way the side of his mouth quirks up in a tiny crooked smile, "and Temari is constantly taking diplomatic assignments in Konoha because Shikamaru still hasn't figured out that she's in love with him — some genius. And the only other person I know is your brother, and I don't want to give him the wrong idea."

She smiles at him. It's the long version of a short answer. But then he asks if she's busy tomorrow, and she thinks he gets it. So she tells him she'll be working in the greenhouse in the morning, but she's free in the afternoon.

He frowns. "I hope you aren't working every Saturday."

"Because you don't want to pay me?" She teases.

He sits back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest, and Sakura giggles because she's never met anyone — not even Naruto — more predisposed to looking like a sulking child without even meaning to.

"Don't worry," she assures him, and carefully pulls apart a chicken skewer with her chopsticks, "this is strictly on my time."

Curious, he inclines forward again. "What are you working on?"

She gives him a knowing smile and nudges the plate onto which she'd disassembled the chicken skewer toward the center of the table — offering.

"Why don't you come by tomorrow?" she says. "I can show you."

His mouth opens and closes, then he nods and picks up his chopsticks. He'd like that, he tells her.

Later, when he walks her home, she finds herself wanting to hug him again — not because she's upset, but just to say goodnight. She tries to rationalize it — she always hugs her friends when they say goodbye at the end of the night, doesn't she? But then she remembers the accusation in Kankurou's voice when he'd admitted that his brother had told him, and decides maybe she'd better not, no matter how harmless it might feel. So instead, she smiles up at him and settles for giving his arm a gentle squeeze the way she had last week, and wonders if he doesn't look disappointed.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she tells him, rubbing his bicep with her thumb through his sleeve, somehow reluctant to let go.

He's watching her intently, and even though she has no guesses at what he's thinking, something in the softness of his eyes makes her wish she'd hugged him after all.

"Tomorrow," he echoes.

* * *

When she'd first arrived in Suna, Sakura had quickly discovered an immense fondness for the greenhouse because it was the single patch of green in this whole godforsaken desert. The warm, humid climate inside and the bright verdant leaves of all the plants remind her of Konoha, so she spends her weekends helping cultivate some of the more fragile species, while simultaneously staving off the gnawing homesickness. So when she comes in early the next morning, before the sun has become quite so punishing, she thinks fondly of early mornings in Leaf and the sun coming up through the trees at the way the light filters in gently through the glass ceiling. She takes a deep breath as she shuts the door behind her, the warm, damp air filling her lungs, and for a moment she forgets how far she is from home.

She briefly hopes Kakashi hasn't burned the village down in her absence. A month hasn't felt terribly long to her, but she can't imagine how it's been for him with no one to do his paperwork. Unless, of course, he's managed to shirk it off onto some other poor, unsuspecting assistant, but that seems unlikely because Sakura knows she's the only one soft enough to take pity on him. Every once in a while, in rare moments like this one, she wishes things had turned out differently. Every once in a while, she misses him. She sets her things down and shrugs out of her flak jacket, already too warm because of the high humidity, and reminds herself that she made her choice. She picks up a large glass mister and makes a lap around the greenhouse. Suna doesn't have the resources to divert additional water to a built-in sprinkler system, but Sakura finds that she doesn't mind because spritzing the plants by hand gives her the opportunity to familiarize herself with each of them, and give them a once-over to make sure they haven't developed any pests or molds.

She passes most of the morning carefully plucking away dead foliage, watering, pruning, and repotting the plants that she decides have outgrown their current containers. It's just after eleven o'clock and she's perched on a stool at the large steel worktable in the middle of greenhouse, tending to the plant cuttings she's attempting to propagate when she hears the door open. She already knows who it will be, but looks up from her work anyway and smiles when she sees him standing in the doorway, distracted by all the verdant life around him.

"Good morning," she says when he finally catches her smiling at him from across the room.

He replies in kind, before glancing down at the rack of glass test tubes sitting on the table in front of her. "Is that what you're working on?"

She nods and beckons him over, not surprised when, rather than walk directly up to the opposite side of the table and stand across from her, he walks around the large planter box and sits down on the stool next to her.

"These are cuttings I took from other plants," she explains. "I'm trying to propagate them in water. You can see how some of them have started growing roots."

He nods, studying the tiny tendrils sprouting from the base of the stems. "What will you do with them?"

She explains how once the roots are large enough, she could transplant the cutting into soil and, if it took, she would have another independent plant. But, the soil quality in Suna isn't ideal for growing some of these plants, so she intends to see if she can grow them hydroponically instead. If she's successful, she tells him, she may be able to expand upon the number of species they've historically been able to support, which would help in the development of better antidotes to combat a wider variety of toxins.

A tiny smile ghosts across his lips and she knows that gleam in his eyes.

"Maybe I should be paying you for this."

She laughs and looks down at the water-bound cuttings with a little swell of pride.

"I do it because I enjoy it," she tells him, and for some reason thinks of the plant Kakashi kept on his desk — the one she'd given him when he'd taken office. The one she'd often been responsible for watering because he was so forgetful. She wonders if it's dead, after a month of her being gone, and the thought makes her sad.

If Gaara picks up on it, she has no way of knowing, because when she looks back over at him, he's still wearing the same guarded smile.

"There's something I want to show you," he says.

She swallows the lump in her throat and forces a smile in return.

"Sure," she says. "I'm nearly finished."

* * *

"Are people staring?" She asks him as they weave through the crowded streets and one head after another turns to watch them pass by, realizing this is the first time they've been out together during daylight hours.

Gaara's eyes casually flick to the side, as if he hadn't noticed.

"Yes," he says, unperturbed.

"Why?"

She mistakenly makes eye contact with a pair of kunoichi standing close by, whispering to one another and looking less than pleased. Even though Sakura knows she shouldn't, she finds herself so annoyed at them that she pointedly glares back. The girls take it for what it is — a challenge — and quickly turn their backs on her, and Sakura huffs quietly. It seems her reputation as Konoha's One Punch Girl has preceded her beyond the walls of the hospital. She looks back up at Gaara to find he's been watching her, smirking.

"Curiosity, probably."

She frowns. "It's rude."

"They don't mean anything by it."

"Did you see those two girls? They definitely meant something by it," she tells him, still irritated. "This fan club of yours is a little much, Gaara."

He shrugs. "They're just jealous, I'm sure."

Sakura isn't sure how to feel about that answer.

"Is this something to be jealous of?" She asks.

His pale eyes flicker back to her, then straight ahead again. "Any proximity to me is a reason to be jealous."

She wonders if that's arrogance, or just the truth — his indifferent tone makes it difficult to tell.

"You don't give them the time of day?" she quips, and his expression darkens.

"I don't," he says. "I remember what they were like as children."

Sakura feels a sudden ache in her chest — Naruto had told her once how Gaara had grown up all alone, feared and cast out by the other children, the same way he had. Guilty, she wonders if he's truly forgiven her after all these years. Then, purely for spite — or so she tells herself — she draws herself up next to Gaara and links her arm with his as they walk, hoping those kunoichi can still see them. And when he looks down at her and sees the way she's smiling, he doesn't have to ask why.

Let them be jealous, she thinks.

At some point, as they continue arm-in-arm through the village, Sakura realizes belatedly that they're heading in the direction of Gaara's building and she finds herself suddenly more curious than she had been when they'd left the greenhouse.

"So, what is it you want to show me?" She asks as they turn the corner onto his street, but his only response is a slight smile.

"All right," she says cheerfully, "keep your secrets."

He casts her an earnest sideways glance. "I think you'll like it."

She recognizes the same vulnerability in his voice from yesterday at dinner, and gently rests her other hand on his arm.

He nods to the Anbu on duty as they walk up the front steps of his building, and if they have any thoughts about her being on his arm, those thoughts are well-concealed behind their masks, but Sakura decides she doesn't care. She happily follows Gaara inside and down the hall to the elevator. Only once they're inside the elevator and he presses the button for the top floor does she realize that the contact seems a bit strange now that they're indoors and away from other people, so with some reluctance she unhooks her arm from his, but doesn't move away. When he turns his head to look down at her and their eyes meet, she's overcome by a sense of shyness she hasn't felt since she was a child, and can feel her cheeks immediately start to turn red. She forces a smile and quickly looks away, wondering what's the matter with her. They exit the elevator together when it reaches the top floor, and once Gaara unlocks the front door and they step inside, Sakura decides it feels strange being in his apartment without the buffer of his siblings.

He pauses in the entryway just long enough for her to take off her sandals and flak jacket before he motions for her to follow him down the hallway, past the kitchen and a sitting room, and — to her immediate discomfort — into his brightly lit bedroom.

"Awfully forward, aren't we?" She teases him in an attempt to mask her own feelings of awkwardness, but as she looks around the room, lit up by the midday sun pouring in through an enormous skylight and half a dozen circular windows, she realizes why he's brought her in here.

Lining the walls and crowding the surfaces of the furniture are dozens of terracotta pots, each occupied by a different variety of cactus. Some are small enough to fit comfortably in the palm of her hand, while others are half as tall as she is, and the diversity of shapes, colors, spine-length and density, and flowers or the lack thereof is staggering. Sakura turns and stares up at him, mouth open.

"Did you cultivate these yourself?" She asks.

He nods, his expression sincere. "After our conversation at the greenhouse, I thought you might like to see them."

She smiles at him, feeling giddy like a child. "They're amazing," she tells him, wandering over to his desk to admire a smaller cactus covered in short, fuzzy spines that make the plant look like it has spots, with a thin disc-like body and a pair of elongated arms sprouting from the top, and she thinks they almost look like ears. "What variety is this one?"

"It's colloquially known as a rabbit-ear cactus," he says. "I'm sure you can see why."

She laughs and turns back to him. He's still standing in the doorway with his arms crossed, watching her closely.

"I like it," she says. "I like all of them."

"I'm glad," he replies, and she thinks he almost sounds relieved.

She glances around the room, admiring his collection, then meets his eyes again.

"They're cute," she continues, her smile knowing. "And prickly. Like you."

He shifts uncertainly, not sure what to make of that remark, and in the bright daylight of the room, she finally has definitive proof that she's made him blush.

"I'm prickly?" He asks.

She regards him fondly from across the room. That's what he took away from her comment?

"Aren't you?" She says, then turns and crosses over to the glass doors at the opposite end of the room, pulling them open to let herself out onto the balcony.

The balcony, it turns out, is home to even more cacti — specifically, the ones that are too large to keep inside. They're as thick as tree trunks, and nearly as tall, and even with their shallow root systems, Sakura is still amazed at how they can survive in a pot. Contentedly, she eases herself down onto the single sun-bleached chaise and stretches out — not caring that it's dusted with sand. She doesn't even think to worry that she's perhaps crossed a line and made herself too comfortable, and, when he finally decides to join her, she simply lifts one hand to shield her eyes from the sun and peers up at him as he stands hesitantly at the end of the chaise. She smiles and draws up her knees — an invitation for him to sit, which, after a moment, he takes.

"I don't mean to be unpleasant," he tells her.

She quirks an eyebrow and stares at him from beneath the visor of her fingers, confused. "I never said you were unpleasant."

"You said I'm prickly," he clarifies, frowning. "I don't mean to be."

She laughs then, and sits herself upright so she can look at him properly, without being blinded by the noontime sun.

"Of course you don't," she says. "Nobody means to be what they are."

She hopes he'll take her meaning, but his look of disappointment lingers, so she continues: "I didn't mean it as an insult, Gaara. I like prickly people, obviously."

He's quiet for several minutes, and she thinks he must be choosing his words carefully, until he opens his mouth and she realizes he hadn't chosen carefully enough: "Kakashi-san is a bit prickly, I suppose."

She bristles. "Yes, in his own way. What's that got to do with anything?"

"You said you like prickly people."

Sakura quickly finds herself tiring of the word.

"Yes, Kakashi was prickly and I loved him for it," she snaps, and immediately regrets having opened her mouth at all — she hadn't mean to say that.

He's not at all taken aback by her annoyance, or her admission. "And?"

She stares at him, dumbfounded. "What?"

"Your relationship ended."

"Yes, that happens sometimes."

"Even though you loved him."

She continues to glare at him, already disliking the direction he's attempting to steer the conversation.

"I really don't want to talk about this, Gaara," she says, hoping he'll acknowledge the warning.

He doesn't.

"I do," he replies, his voice still calm, and despite her frustration, she wonders if she made a mistake by allowing herself to get upset.

She sighs, exasperated.

"Why?" She asks, her tone softening.

He stares at her intently, completely sure of himself. "You said you like prickly people."

The words hit her like a ton of bricks. Maybe they can't be friends.

Slowly, resolutely, she replies, willing herself not to look away: "I loved Kakashi. But, you can't fix someone who wants to stay broken."

He gives her a measured look, considering her response for a long moment, but she already knows it hadn't been the one he'd probably wanted to hear. Or maybe she's overestimating his feelings.

"I see," is all he says.

Or maybe she isn't.

It makes her chest hurt.

She watches with overwhelming guilt as he gets to his feet, presumably to head back inside and away from her.

"It'd probably be best if I went," she says quietly, swinging her legs over the side of the chaise.

She's shocked when his response is to smile at her.

"I'd like it if you stayed," he tells her. "Are you hungry?"

She eyes him warily, unsure of his motives now. Or maybe, she thinks, he doesn't have any motives and she should stop assuming otherwise and just trust him because they're supposed to be friends.

"I guess," she says slowly.

He disappears inside and returns a few minutes later with a plate of musubi wrapped in seaweed paper, a bottle of black tea, and a pair of mugs. He sits down next to her and sets the plate between them before pouring the tea and offering her one of the mugs. Hesitantly, she accepts. She isn't sure what she's supposed to say to him now, except for a timid 'thank you'. But, somehow, it seems to be enough as he contentedly takes a drink of his tea and picks a musubi from the plate. After a moment, she does the same. She tells herself they can still be friends.

As the afternoon wears on, she finds he's still willing to make conversation with her. They both make a concerted effort to keep the topics light-hearted, and the hours begin to pass just as easily as they had all the times before with Sakura laughing and Gaara smiling in spite of himself. At some point, she even decides she's comfortable enough to recline back on the chaise and stretch her arms up overhead, enjoying the warmth and the breeze from being up so high. He asks if maybe they should go back inside. She's not acclimated to the desert sun and he doesn't want her to burn. She smiles and reassures him that she never leaves her apartment without SPF, and that sunburns are a quick fix if it turns out she hadn't applied enough. Besides, she tells him, she's always liked the idea of freckles, and this is the most she's enjoyed being outdoors since she arrived in Suna. Maybe, she admits, the desert is finally starting to grow on her. He studies her face for a moment, then tells her she would look nice with freckles.

"Really?" she asks.

He nods, and leans over her, bracing himself on one hand and reaching with the other to carefully brush his fingers across the dusting of pale brown spots on her shoulder.

"You already have a few," he tells her.

After a moment, his eyes drift slowly back to her face.

"Just a few, though," she quips, smiling at him. "And none on my face."

He leans in closer, and his hand moves further up her shoulder to the base of her neck.

"That's not true," he says, then, delicately, as if he thinks he might break her, or possibly that she might break him for inviting himself into her personal space, he fits his hand to the left side of her face and sweeps his thumb across her cheekbone.

"They're very faint," he continues, his voice dropping. "You have to look closely."

She stares up at him, and her smile begins to waver — she recognizes the way he's looking at her. Kakashi had looked at her that way once. Sometimes, when he thinks she can't see him, he still does.

Maybe they can't be friends.

Ignoring the dull ache in her chest, she stretches her legs out on either side of him and reaches up and grips his shoulders, pushing with one hand and pulling with the other to shift him away from her, before locking them together in front of him and pulling him down into her lap, the back of his head resting against her belly. At no point does he resist her.

They lay there a for long time, Sakura's hands clasped together on his chest, staring up at the impossibly blue sky, not saying a word. At some point, she feels Gaara shift as he lifts his left arm and reaches up to gently rest his hand on top of hers. But it isn't until the sun begins to dip behind the village walls that he chooses to speak.

"Sakura?"

She's still staring at the sky, thinking that the sunsets at home never had this many colors.

"Yes?"

"Will you stay for dinner?" He asks.

No, she thinks, they can't be friends.

"Will you walk me home afterward?" She counters.

"Yes," he says, without hesitation.

She smiles, even though he can't see it. "Okay, then."

* * *

She can only be glad that Kankurou is still off somewhere between here and the eastern border when she walks into the lab on Monday morning, because he can't see her reaction when she finds a little rabbit-ear cactus in a weathered grey terracotta pot sitting at her workstation, with a piece of brown twine tied around it in a bow.


	4. Part 4

Say goodbye to that T rating, kiddos.

* * *

[My broken veins say that if my heart stops beating, we'll bleed the same way.]

* * *

Never in his _life_ did Kankurou think he would be having this conversation with his little brother — the little brother who had terrorized he and Temari as children. Who, as a boy, was content to kill another person for so much as looking at him the wrong way. Who still struggled daily to connect with other people. Who wore his limited understanding of human emotion like a bruise or black eye. He can only stare dumbly.

"Gaara, do you even know what to do with a girl?" he asks.

His younger brother glares at him. "Yes."

Kankurou raises an eyebrow in disbelief. "Really? From experience?"

Gaara's scowl deepens, and Kankurou watches, dumbfounded, as his brother's cheeks turn red.

"No," Gaara says.

Kankurou sighs and wonders where he's supposed to start.

"Does it have to be her?" He asks, knowing Gaara won't like the question, but deciding it's as good a place as any.

Gaara regards him seriously for a minute, his expression softening from irritation to something that Kankurou thinks looks like concern.

"You're angry," Gaara says — a guess, not an observation.

Kankurou shakes his head and glances around the room, fumbling for words because he's not sure how to explain it in a way that his little brother will understand.

"Not really, no," he says after a moment. "It's not like I ever really thought… It's just — she's temporary, you know that, right?"

Gaara goes on staring at him, and from his expression, Kankurou realizes he's probably only confused him further.

"She's not going to stay, Gaara," he tries again. "In a few months when we wrap things up, she'll go back to Leaf and who knows when you'll see her again. Even if this — whatever it is — becomes a thing, she won't stay. So, does it have to be her?"

Gaara folds his arms across his chest and shifts from one leg to the other, not quite able to look his brother in the eye.

"She knows me, I think," he says.

Kankurou has to wonder.

* * *

She finds that they do make a habit of it.

In the evenings, he comes to collect her from the hospital, waiting patiently until she reaches a point in her work that she deems appropriate for stopping. Some days it's only ten minutes. Others, it's three hours. He doesn't mind either way, and makes a point of telling her so every time she apologizes.

Monday is a late night and she's exhausted, so he takes her back to the little place behind her apartment, begrudgingly gives in to her bullying and allows her to contribute to the bill when they finish, then walks her home.

Tuesday marks Kankurou's return from the border, and there's no ignoring the knowing exchange of looks between the brothers when Gaara arrives to pick her up, so she's quick to put a pin in her work and flee out the door in front of him. She asks if they can just go back to his place, so they pick up some soup and noodles on the way, and eat on the balcony outside his room. Before it can get too late, she asks if he'll walk her home.

"Don't. Even," she tells Kankurou when she sees the face he's making as he walks into the lab on Wednesday morning. He gives her the side-eye and tells her he didn't say anything, to which she responds that he didn't have to. That evening, she's out the door again before Gaara can so much as say hello. Kankurou only shrugs. Later, over a hastily thrown together dinner of fried rice, comprised of whatever he'd happened to have in his fridge that she'd deemed acceptable, he asks if she and Kankurou had an argument, and she throws out a half-assed excuse about disagreeing over something at work, not wanting to tell him about the conversation they'd had two weeks ago in which Kankurou had warned her not to fuck around with his little brother, only in slightly nicer words. It's obvious he doesn't believe her, but lets it go anyway. After they've eaten and she's insisted on doing the dishes even though she'd also gone to the trouble of cooking — it's her mess, she tells him — he walks her home.

Thursday drags by in awkward silence because she still can't think of anything to say to Kankurou, and because, after lunch, a pale-faced chuunin pokes her head into the lab to tell Sakura that the Kazekage sent her to relay that he'll be tied up in meetings with council members until late in the evening, and he'll be unable to meet her for dinner. He hadn't actually included the last bit, but Sakura can infer. The chuunin promptly scurries from the room when Sakura glowers at her and asks if that's all. When she turns back to her desk, Kankurou is chuckling quietly. No one asked you, she tells him. They don't speak again until the same chuunin returns to the lab at just after five o'clock, casting a wary glance at Sakura before making a beeline for Kankurou and telling him in a hushed voice — though not hushed enough because Sakura can still hear her — that the Kazekage has requested he come to the council chambers immediately, to which Kankurou nods and begins gathering his things.

"You shouldn't do that," he tells Sakura after he catches her purposely glaring at the chuunin, sending her scuttling from the lab.

"Do what?" Sakura asks, turning back to her work as if she has no idea what he's talking about.

Kankurou gives a snort of laughter. "Right, well, I have to get going. The council must be giving Gaara a hard time over something."

"Okay," she says, doing her best to ignore him, so he catches her off guard when he walks up beside her and puts his hand on her shoulder.

"Try not to terrorize the kids, yeah?" He tells her with a smile.

She leaves the hospital at just after eight o'clock, briefly weighing the option of stopping by the market before it closes to pick up a few things for dinner and then heading over to Gaara's, but thinks that after the day he's had, he might appreciate an evening to himself, and decides to head home instead. She doesn't anticipate being intercepted by Temari outside her apartment building with her arms full of groceries.

"I thought you were still in Konoha," Sakura says.

"Just got back," Temari tells her. "Need a hand?"

Sakura regards the older girl carefully, then accepts it for what it is.

"If you could just get the door," she says, deciding to save Temari the trouble of inviting herself up to Sakura's apartment.

Once they're upstairs, Sakura unloads her groceries on the counter and sets about putting them away.

"So," she says, offhanded, "how was Konoha?"

Temari just shrugs and moves to help her, gathering up some of the perishables and turning to open the fridge.

"Fine," she replies. "Wet."

Sakura nods and hands Temari a carton of eggs. "It's the middle of the rainy season."

"I always forget that it's different from ours."

Sakura makes a face at her over her shoulder. "Suna has a rainy season? I didn't even know the desert had seasons."

"Two," Temari says flatly. "Rainy, and dry."

Sakura thinks those hardly count as real seasons as she passes Temari a package of short ribs wrapped in butcher paper, but says nothing.

"How's the Rokudaime?" she asks lightly, attempting to change the subject. "He hasn't let the village collapse into post-apocalyptic anarchy, I hope."

She's surprised when Temari actually laughs.

"No, the village isn't in shambles," Temari tells her, accepting a bunch of watercress from Sakura's hand, "but after working under Tsunade for so many years, you must certainly have a lot of patience to deal with Kakashi."

"Only some days," Sakura says with a wry smile.

"I saw him hide from a council member in a supply closet," Temari continues, shutting the fridge and moving to help Sakura store the rest of the dry goods in the cupboards. "I don't know how he gets by without you."

Sakura laughs and shelves a bag of rice. "He does that even when I am around."

Temari looks over at her in disbelief. "He does not."

"Who do you think he's usually hiding from?" Sakura asks her. "I don't know why he still thinks it will work."

Temari doubles over laughing, clutching the counter for support, and Sakura smiles, feeling more at ease with Gaara's older sister than she can previously recall.

"I shouldn't be so hard on him, though," she says. "Tsunade and the council chose him as her successor for a reason — he cares deeply about the village and would do anything to protect his people. He just hates the paperwork. And all the dodgy political shit."

Temari gives her a knowing smile. "I can see why you chose him."

Sakura stares at her, caught off guard by the statement, feeling her throat tighten in response. After a moment, she forces herself to return Temari's smile and immediately resumes putting away what's left of the groceries.

"Sakura, I wanted to talk to you," Temari says, reaching for the loaf of bread in Sakura's hand, but Sakura quickly pulls it away.

"About what?" She asks, a bit too sharply, but Temari just continues to smile at her gently. Sakura has seen her smile at Gaara the same way, and wonders, as an only child herself, what it must be like to be the eldest sibling.

"About my brother," Temari tells her, carefully freeing the bread from Sakura's grasp before she squishes it.

Not for the first time today, Sakura decides to play dumb. "Which brother?"

A gleam appears in Temari's eyes that Sakura recognizes from all the times she's seen it in Gaara's, which she now realizes are only a paler shade of his sister's.

"Both of my brothers, actually," she admits.

Sakura closes the cupboard and leans back against the counter, regarding Temari from the edges of her vision, unable to actually face her.

"What about them?" She asks, tentative.

Temari folds her arms across her chest and regards Sakura seriously, looking every bit the part of the protective older sister, and Sakura's initial thought is that she's not really in the mood for another lecture, so she finds herself taken aback by what Temari actually has to say.

"I know about the little chat you had with Kankurou a few weeks ago," she starts, "and I want to apologize."

Sakura turns and stares at her, mouth open. "What? Why?"

"I hope you can understand where he's coming from," Temari tells her, passing over the question. "Gaara still understands so little of the human condition, and Kankurou is only trying to protect him. He's his older brother, after all."

Temari's expression is oddly sympathetic, and Sakura can only nod, unsure of where exactly she's going with this.

"Except he needs to butt out," she says then. "Gaara is a man now, and he can't stay ignorant forever — not if he's going to have any chance at a normal life. Kankurou thinks he's protecting Gaara by sticking his nose where it doesn't belong, but he's just babying him. Gaara has to be able to deal with other people's emotions, and his own. Kankurou distrusts you and thinks you'll hurt Gaara — don't take it personally; he's a man and men are fragile — but, you only learn one way."

Sakura shifts awkwardly and tries to swallow the lump that had formed in her throat as Temari spoke. "I — what are you trying to say?"

Temari reaches out and touches Sakura's arm — a gesture of kindness and reassurance that Sakura is unaccustomed to from the eldest Sand sibling.

"Whatever is going on between you and my brother is your business," she says. "Not Kankurou's. Not Mine. And whatever happens, even if you do hurt him, in which case I won't be thrilled, but, Gaara will be better for it. It's not fair for us to keep him emotionally stunted, even if it's out of love."

"Sorry," Sakura says slowly, still struggling to fully grasp the conversation she's just had. "Are you trying to give me permission?"

Temari laughs and gives her a little shake. "Absolutely not," she replies. "You don't need it."

Sakura just nods, still uncomfortable and only vaguely able to see the humor in the situation.

"So, I'm sorry about what Kankurou said to you," Temari finishes with a smile. "It was uncalled for. I wish you'd told him to piss off."

Sakura feels her face redden and she glances down at the floor, then back at Temari. "I did a bit," she says.

"Good, he needs to learn to mind his own business," Temari tells her, walking over to the fridge and taking out the package of short ribs and the watercress, handing them to her. "Now, take these — if he's not home yet, just throw your weight around with the Anbu on duty. Everyone here is afraid of you thanks to the Godaime. And don't bother lugging that entire bag of rice with you — he's got some in the pantry."

Poor Shikamaru, Sakura thinks as Temari practically shoves her out the door. She'll be running his life if he ever he figures out he's in love with her, and then wonders if she isn't already.

* * *

Sakura had been skeptical that she'd really be able to bully the Anbu on duty into letting her inside Gaara's apartment — let alone the building — as Temari had suggested, especially when, despite obviously recognizing her, they'd stopped her outside the front door and informed her that the Kazekage wasn't in. She'd told them she was aware — that they were meeting for dinner and he was running late, and did she mention that she was the medical specialist from Konoha staying in Suna on extended business? That she was heading up the toxins division of R&D? The Godaime Hokage's apprentice? Yes, the very same.

She's just turning off the rice cooker when she hears his front door open, then footsteps coming down the hall and he walks into the kitchen, drawn by the smell of food. He's clearly exhausted — the long day has drawn lines in his face and his eyes are heavy, but they still widen with surprise when he sees her standing at the counter, scooping steaming rice onto two plates already loaded with grilled short ribs and sautéed watercress.

"I let myself in," she says with a cheeky smile. "Hope you don't mind."

He shrugs out of his vest and drapes it over the back of one of the chairs at the table before walking up to the other side of the counter, staring at her like he doesn't understand what she's doing in his apartment at fifteen minutes of ten, serving dinner. "What are you doing?"

She slides a plate toward across the counter with one hand, holding out a pair of chopsticks in the other. "You had a long day and I thought you might appreciate dinner."

He continues to regard to her curiously, his forehead wrinkled.

"How did you get in?" He asks, accepting the proffered chopsticks.

Her face flushes as she lifts her own plate, along with the bottle of sake she'd taken from his fridge, and walks around to the other side of the counter.

"I, uh, may have had to bully your Anbu," she admits, a bit sheepish.

The beginning of a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.

"I'm surprised you were able to," he tells her.

She tosses her hair over her shoulder and moves to set her plate down at the table.

"It was a bit easier than it should have been," she says, sitting down and uncorking the bottle of sake. "You might want to consider changing the training protocol. You don't really want your black ops letting themselves be bossed around by a little girl. Sorry, can you grab glasses? I forgot."

He nods and walks behind the counter to fetch a pair cups from the shelf, and she considers that she isn't exactly someone's definition of a little girl anymore. She's certainly not tall, but half a lifetime of running, jumping, and intensive combat training has erased any traces of the lithe frame she had as a girl. She's still small by most standards, but her legs are athletic and powerful, the muscle of her arms and shoulders are well-defined to an aesthetic that might be considered unfeminine by those outside her profession, and she has abs to rival many of her male peers. But as she'd grown up under Tsunade's tutelage, she'd discovered a greater sense of beauty in strength than she'd ever known in simply being skinny and pretty. Being skinny and pretty, as she'd found, didn't make her a better, deadlier ninja — didn't make her more useful to her friends and teammates. She suddenly, stupidly hopes as Gaara sits down beside her, placing two glasses between them on the table, that he might feel similarly.

"Maybe I should send them back to the academy," he says, good humored, extending his hand for the bottle of sake. She laughs and hands it to him.

"No, don't do that," she tells him as he pours. "If they'd done a better job, I'd have given up and gone home and you wouldn't have anything to eat — I know, I looked in your fridge. Besides, you have to admit it's a bit scary — the idea that someone could literally punch you into next week."

"A good shinobi doesn't fear death," he tells her, attempting — and failing — to be serious as he hands her a glass.

She takes a sip and picks up her chopsticks, smiling at him as he fills the second glass for himself. "Right, yes, that's all well and good in theory, but we're human beings, so we all do anyway. And, personally, having all of your internal organs rupture simultaneously sounds like a pretty rotten way to die, so, really, you can't blame them."

He actually laughs then — not a quiet chuckle, but a genuine, unexpected laugh in spite of himself — his eyes lighting up as he finishes pouring and sets the bottle down in the middle of the table. It's the first time she's ever heard it, and she thinks it's the strangest sound. Before she even realizes what she's doing, she's put down her glass, reached across the table, and curled her fingers around the back of his neck. She hesitates barely long enough to register the recognition in his eyes, acknowledging what's about to happen even before she does, and then she pulls herself across the table and presses her lips against his, splashing sake all over the table top.

She immediately panics for two reasons: she realizes what she's done, and so does he, and he doesn't respond. So she lets go and pulls away as if he's burned her, grabbing for a napkin, something, anything, to mop up the sake, apologizing profusely and more embarrassed than she's ever been in her life. But then he's getting to his feet, grabbing her wrist and pulling her up out of her chair and into his arms, placing both hands against her cheeks and kissing her a second time.

Dazed, she wonders where he ever found this kind of confidence — wonders if maybe he's had it all along as her mouth slowly opens and his tongue slips inside. She fists her hands in the front of his shirt and presses herself into him.

She's not entirely ready to give it up when he pulls away, her tongue still desperately reaching for his — the last contact to break — even after his lips leave hers. He stares down at her, his expression serious, hands still fitted to either side of her face. Then, resolutely, he lets her go and sits back down.

"What are you doing?" She asks, dismayed, collapsing back into her own chair.

He glances down at the plate of food on the table in front of him, then back at her, his cheeks flushing just barely.

"You went to all the effort…" he trails off quietly.

Inclined as she is to politely tell him she doesn't give a shit, her gaze flickers to her own plate, and she silently acknowledges that it's been a long day — longer still for him — and she _is_ hungry, and, almost certainly, he is, too. So rather than argue, she forces a smile, straightens in her seat, and picks up her chopsticks, trying to remind herself that she's been more patient for far less important things. After six years spent waiting for an idiot Uchiha, she tells herself she can survive dinner. She even finds it in herself to eat at a normal pace and attempt to make conversation when her mouth isn't full, starting with asking him what had the elders in such a tizzy that he was in meetings until ten o'clock at night, and had needed Kankurou for backup. He gives her a measured look.

"You."

She nearly chokes on her sake. "Sorry, what?"

He takes a bite of food, chews slowly, and swallows, then reaches for his own glass and takes a generous sip.

"The council has previously expressed interest in me marrying sometime soon," he says easily. "They don't think it's in my best interests to be spending so much time with a kunoichi from another village."

Sakura suddenly finds herself irrationally angry, because she knows there are people back home — her Hokage, for one, and not just for personal reasons — who would feel similarly about her consorting with the Kazekage.

"Fuck what they think," she snaps before can stop herself, watching the way his browline arches in surprise before quickly adding: "It's only been a few weeks."

He shrugs, as if the whole thing doesn't bother him. "They don't think it's appropriate, but Kankurou was able to talk them down better than I was."

She thinks back to her conversation with Kankurou two weeks ago — her conversation with Temari earlier this evening.

"Why did you send for Kankurou?" She asks him. "He's not exactly thrilled about you spending time with me."

He lifts his glass back to his lips and takes another drink, staring at her, his mouth set in a hard line.

"Because he's my brother," he tells her. "He'll always support me."

She instantly feels guilty for having asked — for having questioned Kankurou's loyalty to his brother, even though she knew, on a personal level, he didn't approve of Gaara's choice.

"Sorry," she says quietly, stuffing another bite of rice into her mouth before she can say anything else she'll likely regret, like asking what Kankurou had told the elders to get them off Gaara's back, except she thinks she might already know, and the thought makes her sad, because it isn't something she's ready to think about, even though she knows it's true.

But Gaara just shoots her a small, crooked smile, and finishes off the last of his sake.

"Don't be," he tells her.

Then she glances down at his plate and realizes that it's empty, and her insides tighten. He stands up from the table and holds out a hand for her plate. Unlike his, it's not empty, but she hands it to him anyway.

"Did you get enough?" He asks softly.

"Yes," she murmurs and downs the rest of her sake, watching him smile and walk the dishes back into the kitchen. Without thinking, she's on her feet, following him to the sink, where she presses her chest against his back and wraps her arms around him, her forehead resting at the base of his neck. She hears the soft clink of porcelain as he sets the plates down — feels him brace himself on the edge of the sink. Then, one of his hands gently grips hers.

"Sakura?"

"Yes?"

"Will you stay the night?"

"Yes."

He turns in her arms, presses his lips briefly to the small purple rhombus in the middle of her forehead, and lets her lead him to his bedroom. She lets go of his hand long enough to quietly pull the door closed behind them, then turns to press herself back into his arms, tilting her head back and placing a delicate kiss against his jawline. His whole body tenses against her as he takes a shaky breath and drags his hands across her back and over her arms around to her front, searching for the zipper at her chest.

Sakura had long since stopped being shy about this sort of thing — Kakashi had made sure of that when she'd climbed into bed with him, barely sixteen and still a virgin. So when she glances down and sees how badly Gaara's hands are shaking as he fumbles with the zipper of her dress, she just smiles and gently takes his hands in hers, setting them at his sides before beginning to unfasten the buttons of his coat one by one.

"I want you," he whispers, as if he's afraid she might think he doesn't.

"I know," she tells him softly.

She pops the last button on his coat and slides her hands over his shoulders as he shrugs out of it. He takes another shallow breath and tries to reach for her zipper again, but she shakes her head and grasps the hem of his shirt, pulling it up and over his head. He's even skinnier than she'd imagined — she can count all twelve of his ribs — and unlike most of the men she's known, whose chests are pockmarked with scars, Gaara has only one, right in the join of his pectoral and shoulder — a small, ragged dimple where Sasuke's Chidori had only barely managed to puncture his sand barrier during the chuunin exams six years ago. She still remembers the way he'd screamed — a little boy who'd never had so much as a scratch, horrified at the sight of his own blood. Slowly, she ducks her head and presses her lips against the ruined skin. His whole body quakes.

Her fingers trace the lines of his obliques down to the waist of his pants where she gently tugs the tie loose and eases them down and over his hips. She tilts her head back to look at him, but finds that his eyes are squeezed shut, so she lifts one hand to cradle the back of his neck, and pulls him into another kiss — more tender than the first, or the second. Then, carefully, she wraps her other hand around him. He makes a small noise in the back of his throat and she kisses him more firmly, giving him a single, deft stroke, then another. His hands find her waist — grip hard enough to bruise.

"Like that?" She asks when he pulls away and buries his face in her hair, his breathing labored.

"More," he growls, and she recognizes something distinctly predatory in the weakness of his voice.

She turns her head to press her lips to his cheek and whispers "okay", then sinks to her knees. He makes a sound like a choked sob as she feels him shudder hard and fist his hands in her hair.

She's purposely slow and gentle, not expecting him to tolerate her for long, so she isn't surprised when, after only a few minutes, she feels his knees try to buckle and all the air comes rushing out of his lungs like he's been holding his breath.

"Stop," he begs, trying to push her away. "You have to stop."

She relents, only to have him haul her up to her feet, take her face in his hands and kiss her desperately, with enough force to make their teeth clash together.

"I want you," he tells her again, the words muffled against her mouth, though this time it's not as a shy reassurance.

He begins to push her backward, moving them in the direction of the bed while feeling for her zipper with one hand and keeping her pressed against him with the other. He finds it in the exact same place he'd left it earlier — just below her breastbone because he'd been unable to rally the courage — and roughly tugs it all the way down, then shoves her dress down her arms. She tries to say his name, to tell him to slow down, but the words are swallowed up by the kiss. She feels the backs of her knees hit the edge of the bed as he finishes stripping off his pants and immediately hooks his fingers into the hem of her sports bra, abandoning her lips for only as long as it takes to yank it up over her head. Then he's crushing his mouth against hers again, teeth grazing her lower lip, tossing the bra aside and pushing her down onto the bed.

"Gaara," she tries again with more force when he climbs on top of her, forgetting about her lips and pressing hard kisses to her neck, breasts, and stomach. "Gaara."

He tilts his head to look up at her — his black-ringed eyes dark and hungry — then, deliberately holding her gaze, licks her navel. He smiles when she shivers and she thinks she barely recognizes him anymore. The boy who had previously been too nervous to undress her is long gone. He slips his fingers into her shorts and pulls them all the way down her legs and over her feet before throwing them away and pressing his nose into her thigh, his breath warm on her skin.

She threads her fingers through his hair. "Gaara."

He peers up at her again, running his hand up her other thigh, stopping just before the join of her hips, then, consenting to her silent request, pulls himself level with her.

"Is something wrong?" He asks when she reaches up and touches her fingertips to his cheek.

Gently, she sweeps his hair out of his eyes and watches him for a long moment, and wonders where he went just then — wonders if he didn't go anywhere, and this is just the vestiges of more than half a lifetime spent killing at will, indiscriminately and uninhibited. Suddenly she feels very foolish for ever having believed, after everything he's been through, that he'd outgrown it, or that he ever would. The lack of self-control he'd exhibited frightens her, but, here, underneath him with one of his hands between her legs and the other curled around the back of her neck, watching the softness come back into his eyes, she thinks she can accept it, because she doesn't want to consider the alternative if she can't. She smiles up at him, then presses a chaste kiss to his lips.

"No," she whispers.

She feels his hand disappear from her thigh. "Good," he says, eyes glazing over, and then she watches as he slowly brings his hand to his mouth and licks two of his fingers.

His hand slips back between her legs and she arches up beneath him, squeezing her eyes shut. However, it quickly becomes clear to her that he's running purely on instinct at the broad strokes of his slick fingers, so she reaches down and gently takes his hand in hers — coaxes him into making small, tight circles instead.

He presses his lips against her neck. "Better?"

Her only response is the reactive jerk of her hips against his hand. As he grows more certain of himself, learning quickly what will replicate that same reaction, she becomes more helpless, and when her body begins to tighten and the rate of her breathing skyrockets, he realizes what he's about to achieve and quickly abandons the pursuit. She barely has time to whine in protest before he kisses her fiercely, pins one of her thighs down, and thrusts himself into her.

She expects him to move slowly at first, protecting his own release, but the pace he sets is immediately hard and fast, attempting to fill her completely with each stroke, and she realizes what he's after.

"Do it," he breathes, curling his fingers into her hair at the nape of her neck, slipping his other hand between them again to help her along. "I want to feel it."

She can't help but give him what he'd asked for, and when she comes, she clenches around him and gasps his name once, twice, so many times she loses count, head snapping back, forgetting anything else she might have known. It proves to be his undoing. His thrusts become sharp and reckless, and he buries his face in her neck, moaning against her skin as she overwhelms him. Spent, he collapses shaking against her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and crushing her against his chest. She presses tender kisses to his temple and reaches up to stroke the back of his neck, listening to his breathing slowly come back down. They stay that way for a long while.

Eventually — when she thinks his arms have likely started to go numb from being pinned between her and the bed — with a kiss, he untangles himself from her, grimacing at how the sweat makes their skin cling uncomfortably, and rolls to the side, leaving a wet trail across her abdomen. She thinks he looks a bit dismayed, and wonders if he hadn't known that sex tended to be a bit messy, but if it bothers him, he says nothing, and welcomes her slipping beneath his arm to press herself against his side and lay her head on his chest.

"I'm supposed to go in to the lab tomorrow," she says slowly after a moment, tracing her fingers along the lines of his stomach, belatedly realizing that she hadn't intended on staying the night, and consequently hadn't brought a change of clothes.

She feels him shift beneath her and peers up to find his head tilted to the side, looking down at her.

"Do you want to?" He asks.

She shudders to think what Kankurou will say if she doesn't, and she doesn't like the idea of shirking off work because of a man.

"Not exactly," she says, hesitant. "But, it's what you're paying me for, and your brother…"

"You can take a day off," he tells her, his hand seeking out hers and carefully entwining their fingers. "You work on the weekends anyway. And don't worry about Kankurou. He'll be fine without you for a day."

Staring up at him, expression uncertain, Sakura thinks that isn't exactly what she meant, but she doesn't know how to tell him what she did. He can tell he hasn't convinced her.

"Do you want me to walk you home?" He asks, and when she realizes she doesn't even have to consider her answer, she stretches up and tentatively touches her lips to his, only for him to kiss her more deeply in return, his fingers tightening around hers.

"No," she tells him between this kiss and the one that follows. "I'd like to stay."


	5. Part 5

[Step into your skin? I'd rather jump in your bones.]

* * *

He still remembers how it had upset him as a child — being unable to sleep. He'd hated the long nights alone, wondering what had made him this way, and if it was the reason why his father refused to let him play with his siblings, and the other children ran from him, screaming, and why sand followed him everywhere even when he wished it wouldn't. Until the night Yashamaru died, when, in rage and grief, he'd lost consciousness, and the nightmares had come. He'd never wished for sleep since, not even after being freed of Shukaku. The demon might have been gone, but he still had too many nightmares of his own, and somehow they were worse.

But, now, holding her close as they lay in bed, exhausted after a second and third time, her body warm and relaxed in his arms, listening to her steady, quiet breathing, he hates the insomnia more than ever, and thinks he's never felt more alone in his life.

* * *

The next three weeks pass by in a strange blur.

Sakura had always thought the gossip-mongers worked quickly back home, but realizes that evidently they work much faster here in Suna when, the next evening, on her way back to her apartment — because she'd insisted to Gaara that she not make a habit of sleeping over — she finds herself being followed. She can feel their presence the moment she walks out of the hospital, but decides to ignore them, even as they tail her across town, through the crowded market, and onto her street, because she assumes they're only curious to see if she'll go to Gaara's — affirmation of what they've heard. But when three kunoichi attempt to corner her outside her building, she realizes she'd assumed incorrectly. They tell her she should go home — that she doesn't belong here. She thinks she recognizes the smallest of them. A timid, mousey girl — she'd been Gaara's student once, Sakura thinks. She'd used that silly little rope dart as a weapon. Sakura can't think of her name.

When she calmly replies that they can take it up with the Kazekage, all three draw kunai. They end up with black eyes, chipped teeth, and broken noses for their efforts.

Disgusted and angry, she storms upstairs, collects her toothbrush and a fresh change of clothes, and immediately heads across town, forgetting what she'd told Gaara this morning, and glaring unkindly at anyone who so much as looks at her the wrong way as she hurries through the streets. The Anbu on duty say nothing when she stalks through the front doors of his building and heads straight for the elevator.

She doesn't even have the presence of mind to be surprised when she finds his front door unlocked, blindly kicking off her sandals in the dark hallway and abandoning her flak jacket and clean clothes on the floor and heading directly for the bedroom. He's awake, standing outside on the balcony in only a pair of sweatpants, staring out at the darkening city, and only when he turns at the sound of her footsteps and his face is a watery blur does she realize that she's crying.

"Sakura?"

She can hear the concern in his voice.

"They followed me home."

Before he has a chance to question her further, she throws herself against him, arms around his shoulders, and kisses him hard, feeling her teeth scrape against his.

If he's confused by what she'd said, or annoyed by her intrusion, she'll never know because without hesitation he responds in kind, kissing her fiercely and fighting to rid her of her clothing, inhaling sharply at the sensation when her bare skin meets his.

She doesn't even notice the blood on her knuckles until after it's over, laying naked in bed, her head in the crook of his neck and her hand on his chest, when he finally asks her what happened.

"They tried to pick a fight with me," she tells him after a moment. "They told me I don't belong here."

He doesn't ask her who, and the way his pale eyes darken tells her he already knows. She kisses his neck — a half-hearted reassurance.

"I don't think they'll try it again," she says and gets up to wash her hands.

They don't, and no one else makes the mistake of following her home. Not that she goes home often after that — only stopping by to empty out her mailbox or do laundry. She hardly even leaves Gaara's bed, except to go in to the hospital.

It hadn't surprised her that he would be ravenous, and in truth, she doesn't mind it. She's missed this kind of intimacy, and she certainly can't fault his desperate need for human affection when he'd spent eighteen years starved of it. So she gives it freely and whole-heartedly whenever he asks — at the end of a long day, in the middle of the night when she ought to be asleep, in the morning when she knows she'll be late to work but can't bear to get out of bed.

Because she asks, she knows the council continues to pressure him to quit seeing her — naked or otherwise. Out of what she assumes to be misplaced concern for her feelings — 'misplaced' because after six years of unrequited affection for Uchiha Sasuke, her feelings aren't easily wounded anymore — he'd been reluctant to tell her, but in an effort to be transparent with her, he admits that they've asked him to send her home and revisit the contract with Konoha for another medic to replace her, and that he'd told them no, because Sakura was the only medic of her caliber other than the Godaime Hokage — who was currently enjoying her retirement — and that to pay a lesser medic who would undoubtedly produce lesser results would be a waste of their limited funding. Sakura beams at his praise, but when she stops by her apartment later in the week to check the mail, she finds a letter addressed to her from the council, offering to honor in full the terms of payment in her contract if she agrees to step down from the project and return home. She tears the letter in half, and says nothing to Gaara. Part of her suspects he already knows.

And then there is the issue of Kankurou, who barely speaks to her anymore, which, after her conversation with Temari, bothers her more than she cares to admit. She can only assume Gaara had told him, and this is his way of expressing his disapproval. But, unsure of what exactly she can do at this point to improve the situation, because she has no intention to quit seeing Gaara and she's fairly certain that would somehow only upset Kankurou more, she resigns herself to letting him sulk, fully acknowledging the distrust — or is it disgust?— in his eyes when she wishes him goodnight if she happens to leave before him in the evening, knowing she's going home to his brother's bed.

However, in spite of — or possibly thanks to, depending on which way she looks at it — her vaguely toxic work environment, she finally sees a breakthrough in her research when, utterly fed up with her lack of progress, she makes the last-ditch decision to use herself as a guinea pig. Creating a controlled environment in one of the hospital rooms with Kankurou's begrudging assistance, she injects herself with a non-lethal dose of his toxin — enough that she could crudely draw it out herself, like she'd done for him, if necessary — followed by an ampoule of adrenaline. Tsunade had taught her that, as a medic, knowing the workings of her own body down to a molecular level would be more effective in saving her life than any weapon, and as with most things the Godaime had taught her in life — except anything involving money — she hadn't been wrong. With the adrenaline to keep her from going into shock or passing out, she quickly disperses her chakra, before the affects of the toxin can restrict it, feeling for the poison attacking her cells, writing down her observations and suggested remedies in excruciating detail, even as her palm begins to sweat and her vision clouds.

After barely two minutes, shaking, she passes the list to a white-faced Kankurou, who clumsily sets about collecting the ingredients she's named from the enormous selection she'd insisted on having on hand for the experiment, already crushed with a mortar and pestle for the sake of time, and mixing them into a beaker of the antidote base she's been building. She can feel herself going into ventricular fibrillation by the time he hands her a glass and she downs the whole thing all at once. Then, fighting the instinct to panic, she waits, knowing her chakra flow will be the first thing to return to normal because she'd built the antidote that way on purpose, and when it does, she unzips the front of her dress, ignoring the way Kankurou blushes and turns away — "Men," Tsunade would say — and places her palm directly over her heart, delivering a single, controlled blast of chakra, then a second when the rhythm doesn't slow. Apparently the adrenaline hadn't been much help, because even as her heartbeat resumes a normal pace, she promptly blacks out.

A few hours later, she wakes up in a hospital bed in a different room, another medic watching her warily from the corner and Kankurou sitting beside her.

"You're a fucking idiot," he tells her.

"But, I'm not dead," she replies.

Gaara has to come pick her up once she's been safely discharged. Holding onto his arm and bracing herself against him for support, she can tell he isn't thrilled as they slowly make their way back to his building. But, then he glances down at her, barely smiling, and thanks her for helping prove his point to the council, even if she did almost die. Her chest hurts, but she laughs anyway.

When she's cleared to go back to work after a few days, their success makes her sure that her relationship with Kankurou will have improved. But when he slumps into the lab and she cheerily informs him that she's working on refining the antidote so it can be injected rather than ingested for quicker absorption into the bloodstream, and he doesn't even turn to look at her, only humphing in response before settling in at his workstation, she's both disappointed and angry to discover that it hasn't. So, when she packs up her workstation to go home that evening and on her way out the door, he asks if she's sure about what she's doing, she realizes that she's been waiting for this all day. She's sure she sees him flinch when she turns to glare at him over her shoulder.

"Sorry?"

He grimaces and starts to repeat himself, but she cuts him off. "No, I heard you the first time," she says. "I meant 'sorry, why is this any of your business?'"

"He's my brother," Kankurou starts to say, but Sakura just laughs at him.

"You really think I'm so awful, Kankurou?" She asks.

"Of course I don't," he says weakly, his eyes darting away.

But Sakura has never been one to pull her punches.

"Then why does it bother you so much that I'm sleeping with him?"

From the look on Kankurou's face, that one had hit a vital, but he's quicker to recover than she'd anticipated and immediately comes back on the counter.

"You think you're justified because Temari gave you the go-ahead?" He snarls. "She loves to step in and play big sister at times like this, but she doesn't understand because she's never here! She's always running off to your village, chasing after that Nara kid, so who do you think Gaara talks to?"

"She's his sister and she loves him," Sakura tries to argue, but Kankurou won't hear it.

"And she has no idea how he feels!" He volleys back. "Even if she were around more than a few days out of the month, she'd still have no idea. Gaara and I are brothers. He'll never talk to Temari about the things he talks about with me. He was a virgin — who do you think he came to for advice when he decided it had to be you?"

Sakura turns to face him then, hands fisted at her sides. If he expects her to be embarrassed, he's mistaken.

"So he told you he wanted to have sex with me," she says evenly. "That gives you grounds to accuse me of not caring about him? Even though you say you know I'm not that kind of person? Or did he tell you something else?"

She pauses briefly, to see if he can come up with a response, and when he can't, she presses on, not caring if she's only doing so out of spite.

"Did he tell you that he doubts me? That he doubts my feelings?" She asks him, knowing perfectly well that the answer to both questions is no.

Kankurou remains silent, gritting his teeth and glaring at the floor.

"I thought as much," she says with finality, taking a breath and turning to leave. "Stop projecting."

She hears his chair clatter to the floor and glances back over her shoulder to see him standing with his hands fisted, his expression pained and angry.

"You're leaving, Sakura," he insists.

"I am," she replies, straightening and turning back for the door. "Goodnight, Kankurou."

"No," he stops her again. "You're _leaving_. In four months when the project is complete, you're going home."

She falters, feeling her face redden. "Six months was only the estimated duration. We've produced significant results — a six month extension could be granted. It was in the contract."

"Stop it," he snaps. "It doesn't matter if it's four months or a year from now — you aren't staying here. You're going home."

Sakura stiffens. It was a reality she hadn't been willing to face just yet, but Tsunade had spent years teaching Sakura to never make apologies for herself because, as a woman, that's exactly what the world would ask her to do, and she certainly isn't about to start now.

"That's none of your business," she murmurs, and stalks out of the lab.

She won't apologize, she thinks, blinking back angry tears as she hurries through the crowded, sun-drenched streets, desperate to get back to Gaara's.

Not to the kunoichi who still point and glare in the streets. Not to the council. And not to Kankurou.

She won't apologize, because when she lets herself into Gaara's apartment and finds him bare-chested, waiting for her in the entryway, she tells herself she has nothing to be sorry for. She barely has time to shrug out of her flak jacket and kick off her sandals before he's pulled her into his arms, one hand at the back of her neck, kissing her so desperately that she can barely breathe. He can hardly stand waiting long enough for them to make it to the bedroom and has already divested her of her clothes — now strewn down the length of the hallway — by the time they collapse into bed. He sits up and pulls her into his lap, wrapping one arm around her waist, his mouth seeking out her breast as he tugs at the waist of his pants. She won't apologize, she thinks, her hands on his cheeks to hold him against her, gasping and burying her face in his hair as he slides into her. He groans in the back of his throat as her hips rise and fall against his, abandoning her breast to kiss her fiercely, panting against her lips and whimpering her name as his climax creeps up on him. She feels her own body tighten in response and she grinds herself against him, desperate to feel how deeply he reaches.

"Do it," he commands her, his arms tightening around her waist.

She isn't sorry, she thinks when orgasm washes over her, writhing helplessly in his arms and crying his name. His voice catches in his throat and his teeth find her collarbone as he abandons all sense of rhythm or purpose, except the desire to follow her, and she isn't sorry when he does — gasping against her skin, shaking and clinging to her so tightly that she feels her ribs and spine creak in protest.

And she certainly isn't sorry when he collapses back onto the bed, still clutching her to his chest, like he can't possibly have her close enough.

* * *

He can still remember her as a child. She hadn't looked like the girls back home, who were the same muted blondes and browns as the desert, as indistinguishable to him as grains of sand. She had been bright, electric color, as vibrant and fascinating and foreign as her village hidden in the leaves. He remembers watching her, baffled by her devotion to her teammates and friends — a social construct he hadn't understood yet — returning to the hospital day after day with fresh flowers for Lee and Naruto, unbothered by the knowledge that they would simply wither away. He hadn't known it at the time, but he's sure he loved her then. As sure as he is that he'd hated Uchiha Sasuke, and that he would have done anything to spare her a lifetime of loneliness and misery spent loving him, even if it meant killing her.

"What are you thinking about?"

She stretches out in bed beside him, reaching to lay a hand on his chest, her bright eyes glowing in the soft moonlight. He still wonders what she could possibly see in him.

"Nothing."

So many horrible truths. He doesn't think he'll ever be able to tell her.

* * *

Wowowow. Sorry, shorty chapter. Expect to see some more from Gaara's POV as we head into the endgame.


	6. Part 6

[I can hardly speak, and when I try, it's nothing but a squeak.]

* * *

The letters keep coming. Sakura keeps ignoring them.

* * *

He knows about the letters. Sakura won't say anything to him, but the council does.

They've reached out to her several times now, they tell him, making her a very generous offer to which she can't even be bothered to respond. As if somehow she's the one being rude. She declines, he tells them. Quit wasting ink. He intends to offer her a six-month extension on her contract anyway. Collectively, they frown, and tell him they strongly advise against that. Their advice is noted, he tells them, and gets up to leave. They implore him to think about what's best for the village.

He can feel his patience swiftly deteriorating.

This is what's best for the village, he tells them. The longer she stays, the more they can learn from her. The more lives she will save. They insist that his father worked for years to strengthen Suna as an independent nation — that he would never have wanted the village to become so dependent on foreign shinobi. The last vestiges of his calm crumble away.

_His father_, he tells them, had bred him — his own son — to be a human weapon. And when that hadn't worked out, his father had sent assassins after him. He'd been a toddler. And when _that_ hadn't worked out because he'd killed the assassins, his father had made a pact with a war criminal, forsaken their alliance with Leaf, and wound up dead for his troubles. What his father wanted, he tells them, is irrelevant and will never factor into any of his decisions regarding what's best for this village.

"Kazekage-sama," they say, stopping him on his way out the council chamber door. "If she doesn't accept our offer, and you choose not to renegotiate her contract with Konoha, we may be forced to take this matter to Konoha on your behalf."

He stands in the doorway for a long moment, collecting not his thoughts, but his temper. He had always assumed — or perhaps hoped — the irrational rage that had often consumed him as a child had belonged to Shukaku, and, when the Bijuu had been extracted from him, that he would be free of the anger as well. This hadn't been the case. The hate had been his all along. Shukaku had simply fed it. And not allowing it to run rampant, as he had as a child and often finds himself wishing he still could, is a skill he is still perfecting. Sand draws from the corners of the room and rises up at his feet.

"Write to Konoha's council if you want," he says at last, without turning to address them. "But, make it clear that you're doing so at your own behest, not mine."

And then he's gone.

* * *

If Sakura senses his foul mood when she comes home that night, she says nothing. He's sitting out on the balcony, trying to remind himself that he's supposed to have changed — that killing people when he's angry is not an acceptable reaction — when she emerges barefoot from the bedroom and climbs wordlessly into his lap, leaning back against his chest and tilting her head to kiss the underside of his jaw.

He knows about her arguments with his brother. She'd yet to say anything — likely because she didn't want to upset him — but, the day after the hospital had called him to come sign her discharge paperwork, Kankurou had cornered him in his office and proceeded to unleash two months' worth of pent up misgivings about his decision to pursue a relationship with her, none of which really made sense to Gaara. But he'd listened with a straight face, and when Kankurou was finished, he'd thanked him for his honesty and his concern. Kankurou had just stared at him, dumbfounded, for a long moment, before sighing in defeat. Confused, Gaara had asked if there were something else he ought to say. Kankurou hadn't been able to come up with anything, and the brothers had simply stood in uncomfortable silence until Kankurou finally mumbled something that sounded like an apology and promptly taken his leave. That had been nearly two weeks ago, and to his own shame, on the few occasions he'd seen Kankurou since, Gaara still hadn't been able to think of anything to say.

After a moment, he wraps his arms around her middle and buries his face in her hair, and thinks back to what he'd told Kankurou before.

_She knows me, I think_.

Kankurou hadn't seemed so sure.

"Everything alright?" He hears her ask.

He doesn't know how to tell her that a few hours earlier he seriously entertained the idea of killing his council if it would put an end to the political meddling so he could just _have_ her — how there are times when he would raze the entire village just to be alone with her.

"I'm not sure," he murmurs.

He feels her gently lay a hand on his arm.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

How can he ever tell her?

"Not yet."

She doesn't protest when he gathers her in his arms and carries her back into the bedroom.

* * *

"When I was six years old, I wanted to die."

The words cement themselves in her brain. She should have known.

"You can't mean that."

She doesn't know why she lies, because after the months she's spent with him, she has no doubt that he does. Still, she reaches across the bed and lays a hand on his chest, eyes wide and horrified, as if the admission actually surprises her. Once, the darkness in his eyes would have frightened her — now, it only makes her heart constrict in her chest. The pain is crippling.

She expects him to say something, to pull her closer, to gently lay his hand over hers as reassurance, but he simply stares at her, both arms tucked back behind his head.

"Why?" She asks after a moment of silence, unsure she honestly wants to know, barely able to breathe for the pain in her chest.

He goes on staring at her, unflinching.

"My father tried to have me killed for the first time."

Her heart seizes, and as Kankurou's words surface from the recesses of her brain, she finds she feels the same way she had two weeks ago, going into V-fib in the hospital. She'd done that to herself, and now wonders if she hadn't somehow chosen this, too.

_People have been trying to kill my brother since he was six years old._

She swallows hard, trying desperately to relieve the tightness in her chest.

"Kankurou told me," she says, even though it's not quite the truth, but it's all she can manage before her voice breaks.

Gaara's expression doesn't change. "Did he also tell you that my father chose my mother's brother for the task?"

Sakura can feel her heartbeat in her brain. It's enough to make her want to be sick, but Gaara carries on without notice.

"He was a member of the Anbu Black Ops, so I couldn't see his face."

She wants him to stop. Her chest feels as though it's about to burst. The pain is excruciating — worse than V-fib, worse than a sword in her belly, worse than the day Sasuke had walked away, worse than the day she'd left Kakashi.

But he isn't done yet. "He was the only person to have ever loved me," he says, his voice unwavering.

"What happened to him?" She whispers, even though she's sure she already knows the answer.

"I killed him without even knowing who he was."

As the urge to vomit rises in her throat, she thinks Naruto could have never prepared her for this.

"As he was dying, he told me he had never loved me — that he hated me for killing his sister," he continues, his eyes still fixed on her. "That my mother had hated me as well."

"Why?" She cries, overwhelmed by the pain in her chest. "You were just a child."

At last, he looks away, shifting back to stare up the ceiling and drawing one hand from behind his head.

"A self-loving demon," he says, touching his fingers to the blood tattoo on his forehead, staring off into the darkness. "That's what she had named me for. I was meant to be her curse upon the village for what it had done to her."

She fists her hand on his chest, suddenly angrier than she can remember being in years. Unable to stand it, she pulls herself against him, shoving his hand away from his browline before taking his face in her hands and pressing a hard kiss to the scarred kanji.

"I spent years believing that," he tells her, his voice softening and breaking, "not knowing that it was a lie constructed by my father."

Before she realizes it, her hands are soaked.

To her detriment, Sakura has always had a fondness for broken things.

She knows it's a mistake to pull away so she can see his face, but she does it anyway, her heart rending when she finds his eyes squeezed shut, his teeth ground together, and tears pouring down his face. Not knowing what else she can do, she pulls him into her, cradling him against her chest as he sobs, his tears hot on her skin, and wonders what she's supposed to do now.

* * *

Friday afternoon, Sakura realizes her mistake in ignoring the letters.

It's just after lunch and she has one eye pressed to a microscope when she hears the door to the lab slide open. She doesn't bother to look up from her work, assuming it's only Kankurou coming back from the cafeteria, since she rarely notices when he comes and goes anymore, on account of him still refusing to speak to her. But, then she hears him yelp in surprise from the other side of the room and scramble out of his chair, and, realizing he's still here, wonders who's just walked in, and what Kankurou's spilled this time.

"Hokage-sama!"

Or maybe he's not spilled anything.

Sakura whips around in her seat, swiveling past Kankurou standing at attention, and is simultaneously horrified and overjoyed to find Kakashi — dressed in his infantry uniform instead of his robes because he never could be bothered to wear them at home either — standing in the doorway, smiling at her beneath his mask. The greeting drops from her lips before she even has a chance to stop and consider it.

"Kaka-sensei!"

Kankurou's face immediately twists and she thinks he didn't even look so disgusted when she admitted to sleeping with his brother. It annoys her.

"You still call him that?" He asks, revolted.

Sakura all but snarls at him, opening her mouth to tell him exactly where he can fuck off to, but then Kakashi laughs. She recognizes that laugh. She'd heard it constantly as a child, because that was how often he'd been forced to pry Sasuke and Naruto from each other's throats. She can picture his expression even before she looks back over at him: the awkward smile, head tilted, hands stuffed in his pockets. The actual sight of it makes her chest hurt.

"Kankurou-kun," he says, that familiar lilt in his voice, "would you mind if I talked with my assistant privately for a moment?"

Kankurou's face pales — after eighteen years of living with Gaara, she can only assume he knows a thinly veiled threat when he hears one. "S-sure," he stammers, abandoning whatever he'd been working on and collecting his things.

Kakashi is still smiling, and if she didn't know what he looked like when he was feeling particularly pleased with himself, she might think he felt a bit guilty for kicking Kankurou out of his own lab. Kankurou, on the other hand, looks like a kicked puppy, casting a disappointed glance at Sakura before ducking his head and shuffling out of the lab, making sure to give Kakashi a wide berth as he slips out the door.

She stares at him for a long moment, her smile knowing. "That wasn't very nice, Kakashi."

He gives a good-natured shrug. "Oh, I'm sure he'll recover."

She frowns ever-so-slightly as he strolls over to her workstation, hands still in his pockets. "You might have let me know you were coming," she tells him.

He quirks his head, leaning back against the counter beside her. "Hm, I could have sworn I wrote you last week."

Sakura feels the blood drain from her face, but Kakashi only smiles.

"The Suna council told me you'd been ignoring their letters," he says.

She stares up at him, suddenly feeling very stupid. "That's why you're here."

He nodes pleasantly, his expression still cheerful. "They asked if I would come check in on you. They tell me you've been causing quite a fuss since you arrived."

Sakura's face darkens. "And you believe them?"

Kakashi chuckles lightly and goes on smiling at her. "Not for a second. I told them you were my best student. Unfortunately, they insisted."

Sakura knows exactly where this conversation headed, but still can't help but laugh at him. "You shouldn't lie to our allied councils, Kakashi."

"It's true," he insists. "You were my best student."

"Yes, right behind Sasuke and Naruto," she says, recognizing that familiar glimmer in his dark eyes.

"Hardly," he replies. "Neither Sasuke or Naruto were willing to have sex with me."

She'd walked straight into that one, but punches him in the arm anyway, fighting not to smile when he groans. "You're lucky I pulled most of my chakra from that one," she tells him.

"That's no way to treat your poor old teacher," he whines. "I think you've broken it."

"Not a chance. If you were that old and fragile, Naruto would have forcibly removed you from office."

"I wish the council would let me retire."

"It's barely been a year, Kakashi."

"It's awful, Sakura. None of the other assistants will do my paperwork. The stacks have gotten so tall I can barely see out the window. I'll suffocate before long."

"Well, you'll have to muddle through somehow," she tells him. "I can't come home yet."

He regards her curiously. "Can't? Or won't?"

She'd walked straight into that one, too. She curses him for knowing her so well, and herself for for being stupid enough to think that would have changed after only three months. She bites her lip and stares at the floor.

"They told you, then," she says.

"They did," he affirms, his voice softening. "I wanted to see if it was true."

When she says nothing, he waits a moment, then presses her again.

"And?"

She suddenly, desperately wishes she could be anywhere else, and whatever foolish part of her that had completely discounted the idea that she might ever have to have this conversation with Kakashi has apparently won out over her frustration and anger because when she snaps her head up, fully prepared to rip into him for coming all this way just to scold her for who she's sleeping with when they aren't even together anymore, she starts crying instead.

"It's nobody else's business," she insists, swiping at her eyes. "Not the Suna council, not the Konoha council, and not yours."

She expects him to sigh, to frown at her, to place his hand on her shoulder and gently chastise her for being too naive, for not thinking more carefully about her decisions — the way he had when she was a child, more concerned with winning the affection of a stupid boy than her training. But, he does none of those things. Instead, she watches as he reaches up and pulls his mask down over his chin, and she finds that he's smiling — the same way he'd smiled at her last year, when she'd told him it was over. Then, slowly, he shifts and holds out his arms. She doesn't need to be asked twice. Without thinking, she throws herself out of her chair and against his chest, hugging him as tightly as she knows how without cracking his ribs.

"You've always had terrible taste in men," he tells her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders.

She half-laughs, half-sobs into the front of his jacket. "I know." Then, after a moment, "You're not angry?"

"Well, I'm certainly not thrilled to have humped it three days across the desert to find out that the woman I love is in love with another man, but I gave up my right to be angry when I made the asinine decision to spend the rest of my life with my ghosts instead of spending it with you. Gaara is evidently much smarter than I am."

She feels his lips against her hair as he kisses the top of her head.

"I'm sorry things didn't work out differently, Sakura-chan," he whispers.

Her eyes burn and her throat constricts as she tries to blink back her tears. The tightness in her chest is unbearable.

"Me, too, Kaka-sensei."

* * *

Eventually, after thoroughly snotting up the front of Kakashi's flak jacket, then insisting on scrubbing it clean, she asks him what he plans to tell Suna's council.

"Well, they want me to revise the contract for a different medic, and take you back to Konoha."

She pauses scrubbing the front of his vest, and glances back at him warily over her shoulder to find him leaning up against the steel-top table in the middle of the lab, regarding her seriously.

"Will you?" She asks in a quiet voice.

Kakashi shrugs. "Personally, I think it'd be a colossal waste of everyone's time and money, but I can see how your relationship with Gaara might be a conflict of interest because Suna is so horribly archaic and relies on good old-fashioned nepotism when appointing a new Kazekage — unless it was just me you didn't want to have children with."

Sakura glowers at him. "You didn't want kids either, Kaka-sensei."

"And, I still don't," he says cheerily. "But, it's expected of Gaara, so it only makes sense that his council doesn't approve of him pursuing a relationship with a kunoichi from another village that will never result in children."

"Gaara is trying to change that," she says. "He wants it to be an electoral system, like ours."

Kakashi's face is skeptical, even with his mask pulled back up over his nose. "He's going to have a hard time. This is the way things have been done since the village was founded before the first war. The elders won't agree to that kind of change easily."

She stares at him for a long moment, her expression resigned. "Are you going to make me come home?"

To her surprise, Kakashi laughs. "Sakura, even when you were twelve, I could never _make_ you do anything. I don't expect to be able to start now."

She wants to laugh, but can't seem to make herself.

"So, what happens now, then?" She asks.

Kakashi shrugs again. "That's really up to you, Sakura. Gaara wants to extend your contract here an additional six months, but I'm afraid that will only create more problems for you. Personally — and this is just my opinion, so you can kindly tell me to go hell if you don't like it — I think it might be best for you to come home, and take some time to really consider what it would mean to have a functional relationship with Gaara, though I'm sure some part of you already knows."

She turns back to the sink, staring down at the damp front of Kakashi's vest. He's right, she thinks. She does know. She's known all along. And somehow, it's still not a choice she's ready to make.

"Kaka-sensei?"

"Hm?"

She peers back over at him, face flushed, embarrassed by what she's about to ask.

"Earlier," she says quietly, "you said I loved him."

He quirks a single white eyebrow. "Don't you?"

Her gaze flickers between his face and the floor, and for the first time since she arrived here, she wonders if she hasn't made all the wrong choices. "I'm not sure yet."

Kakashi regards her sternly, arms folded across his chest. "Sakura, I've only seen you as upset as you were earlier on two occasions: when people criticized you for waiting on Sasuke, and when people criticized you for being involved with me."

She has to force herself to smile, knowing he means to comfort her, because somehow, his words only make her feel worse.

_When I was six years old, I wanted to die._

* * *

A/N: Only two parts left. Probably. Also, Gaara might be best boi, but Kakashi is daddy.


End file.
